• 


THE  ]  IBRARY 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  CALIFORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT 


V-rTHJ; 

1    *•      :  •   "','  - 

i.r*T',r     r/[  hi  K'l'i 
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THE 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 


FROM 


THE  ACCESSION  OF  JAMES  II. 


BT 

• 


THOMAS   BAJ3INGTON   MACADLAY. 


VOLUME  I. 


BOSTON: 
PHILLIPS,    SAMPSON,   AND   COMPANY. 

NEW  YORK:    J.   C.   DERBY. 

1856. 


STKREOTYPEl)   AT  THK 
B30TUN    TYPE   AND   STEREOTYPE    rOONDB f 


College 
Library 

fcft 


CONTENTS 


OP 


THE     FIRST    VOLUME 


CHAPTER    I. 

Page 

INTRODUCTION, 1 

Britain  under  the  Romans, 3 

Britain  under  the  Saxons, 4 

Effect  of  the  Conversion  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  Christianity 5 

Danish  Invasions ;   the  Normans, 8 

The  Norman  Conquest  and  its  Effects, 10 

Effects  of  the  Separation  of  England  and  Normandy, 12 

Amalgamation  of  Races, 13 

Conquests  of  the  English  on  the  Continent, 14 

Wars  of  the  Roses, 16 

Extinction  of  Villenage, 17 

Beneficial  Operation  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Religion, 18 

The  Nature  of  the  ancient  English  Government  often  misrepre- 
sented, and  why,  20 

Description  of  the  limited  Monarchies  of  the  Middle  Ages,   22 

Prerogatives  of  the  ancient  English  Kings,  how  limited, 23 

The  Limitations  not  always  strictly  observed,  and  why, 24 

Resistance  an  ordinary  Check  on  Tyranny  in  the  Middle  Ages,  . .  26 

Peculiar  Character  of  the  English  Aristocracy, 29 

The  Government  of  the  Tudors, 31 

The  limited  Monarchies  of  the  Middle  Ages  generally  turned  into 

absolute  Monarchies,  and  why 33 

The  English  Monarchy  a  singular  Exception,  and  why, 34 

The  Reformation  and-  Ms  Effects, 35 


X 


IV  CONTENTS. 

Origin  of  the  Church  of  England  ;   her  peculiar  Character, 40 

The  llclation  in  which  she  stood  to  the  Crown, 42 

The  Puritans  ;   their  republican  Spirit, 46 

No  systematic  parliamentary  Opposition  offered  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  Elizabeth,  and  why, 47 

The  Question  of  the  Monopolies,  49 

Scotland  and  Ireland  become  Farts  of  the  same  Empire  with 

England,  60 

Diminution  of  the  Importance  of  England  after  the  Accession  of 

James  the  First, 54 

The  Doctrine  of  Divine  Right, 55 

The  Separation  between  the  Church  and  the  Puritans  becomes 

wider 58 

Accession  and  Character  of  Charles  the  First, 64 

Tactics  of  the  Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons, 65 

Petition  of  Right, 66 

The  Petition  of  Right  violated 67 

Character  and  Designs  of  Wentworth, 67 

Character  of  Laud, 68 

The  Star  Chamber  and  High  Commission, 69 

Ship-money, 70 

Resistance  to  the  Liturgy  in  Scotland 72 

A  Parliament  called  and  dissolved,  74 

The  Long  Parliament 75 

The  first  Appearance  of  the  two  great  English  Parties, 76 

The  Irish  Rebellion, 81 

The  Remonstrance,  82 

The  Impeachment  of  the  Five  Members,  84 

Departure  of  Charles  from  London, 85 

Commencement  of  the  Civil  War, 88 

Successes  of  the  Royalists ;  Rise  of  the  Independents, 90 

Oliver  Cromwell, 91 

The  Self-denying  Ordinance  ;   Victory  of  the  Parliament, 92 

Domination  and  Character  of  the  Army 93 

Risings  against  the  Military  Government  suppressed, 95 

The  Proceeding  against  the  King 96 

His  Execution, 99 

Subjugation  of  Ireland  and  Scotland, 101 

Expulsion  of  the  Long  Parliament, . 102 

The  Protectorate  of  Oliver, 104 

Oliver  succeeded  by  Richard, 108 

Fall  of  Richard  and  Revival  of  the  Long  Parliament, Ill 


C  xfTENTS.  f 

Second  Expulsion,  of  the  Long  Parliament, Ill 

Monk  and  the  Army  of  Scotland  march  into  England, 112 

Monk  declares  for  a  free  Parliament, . .  • 114 

General  Election  of  1660 116 

The  Restoration 116 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Conduct  of  those  who  restored  the  House  of  Stuart  unjustly 

censured, 118 

Abolition  of  the  Tenures  by  Knight  Service, 119 

Disbanding  of  the  Army, 120 

Disputes  between  the  Roundheads  and  Cavaliers  renewed, 121 

Religious  Dissension, 123 

Unpopularity  of  the  Puritans 125 

Character  of  Charles  the  Second, 130 

Characters  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  Earl  of  Clarendon, 134 

General  Election  of  1661, 136 

Violence  of  the  Cavaliers  in  the  new  Parliament, 137 

Persecution  of  the  Puritans,  138 

Zeal  of  the  Church  for  hereditary  Monarchy, 139 

Change  in  the  Morals  of  the  Community, 140 

Profligacy  of  the  Politicians  of  that  Age, 141 

State  of  Scotland, 143 

State  of  Ireland 145 

The  Government  becomes  unpopular  in  England, 146 

War  with  the  Dutch, 149 

Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons, 150 

Fall  of  Clarendon 151 

State  of  European  Politics,  and  Ascendency  of  France, 164 

Character  of  Lewis  the  Fourteenth, 155 

The  Triple  Alliance 157 

The  Country  Party 158 

Connection  between  Charles  the  Second  and  France, 159 

Views  of  Lewis  with  respect  to  England, 160 

Treaty  of  Dover 163 

Nature  of  the  English  Cabinet, ~ 164 

The  Cabal, 165 

Shutting  of  the  Exchequer, 167 

a* 


VI  CONTENTS. 

War  with  the  United  Provinces  and  their  extreme  Danger, 168 

William  Prince  of  Orange, 169 

Meeting  of  the  Parliament, '. 171 

Declaration  of  Indulgence, 172 

It  is  cancelled,  and  the  Test  Act  passed, 173 

The  Cabal  dissolved * 174 

i'eace  with  the  United  Provinces ;  Administration  of  Danby,  ...  175 

Embarrassing  Situation  of  the  Country  Party, 177 

Dealings  of  that  Party  with  the  French  Embassy, 177 

Peace  of  Nimeguen ;  violent  Discontents  in  England 178 

FallofDanby;  the  Popish  Plot 181 

First  General  Election  of  1679 184 

Violence  of  the  new  House  of  Commons, 186 

Temple's  Plan  of  Government, 186 

Character  of  Halifax, 189 

Character  of  Sunderland, 192 

Prorogation  of  the  Parliament ;  Habeas  Corpus  Act, 193 

Second  General  Election  of  1679  ;  Popularity  of  Monmouth, ....  194 

Lawrence  Hyde, 197 

Sidney  Godolphin, 198 

Violence  of  Factions  on  the  Subject  of  the  Exclusion  Bill 199 

Names  of  Whig  and  Tory 200 

Meeting  of  Parliament ;  the  Exclusion  Bill  passes  the  Commons,.  201 

Exclusion  Bill  rejected  by  the  Lords  ;  Execution  of  Stafford,. . . .  202 

General  Election  of  1681 202 

Parliament  held  at  Oxford  and  dissolved ;  Tory  Reaction, 203 

Persecution  of  the  Whigs, 206 

The  Charter  of  the  City  confiscated  ;  "Whig  Conspiracies, 206 

Detection  of  the  Whig  Conspiracies ;  Severity  of  the  Goven. 

ment 208 

Seizure  of  Charters 210 

Influence  of  the  Duke  of  York 210 

He  is  opposed  by  Halifax, 211 

Lord  Keeper  Guildford, . 213 

Policy  of  Lewis, .  215 

State  of  Factions  in  the  Court  of  Charles  at  the  Time  of  IP* 

Death, .  21« 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   III. 

Great  Change  in  the  State  of  Engknd  since  1685, 218 

Population  of  England  in  1685 219 

The  Increase  of  Population  greater  in  the  North  than  in  the  South  221 

Revenue  in  1685, 223 

Military  System, 225 

The  Nary, 231 

The  Ordnance,  238 

Non-effective  Charge, 238 

Charge  of  Civil  Government 239 

Great  Gains  of  Courtiers  and  Ministers,  .  v 239 

State  of  Agriculture, 242 

Mineral  Wealth  of  the  Country 246 

Increase  of  Kent,  248 

The  Country  Gentlemen 248 

The  Clergy 253 

The  Yeomanry 260 

Growth  of  the  Towns ;  Bristol, 261 

Norwich, 263 

Other  County  Towns 264 

Manchester 265 

Leeds, 266 

Sheffield, 266 

Birmingham, 267 

Liverpool, 268 

Watering  Places ;  Cheltenham,  Brighton,  Buxton, 269 

Tunbridge  Wells, 269 

Bath, 270 

London, 271 

The  City, 273 

The  fashionable  Part  of  the  Capital 277 

Police  of  London, 280 

The  Lighting  of  London, 282 

White  Friars,  283 

The  Court 284 

The  Coffee-Houses 286 

Difficulty  of  Travelling,   290 

Badness  of  the  Roads 291 

Stage  Coaches,  295 

Highwaymen,  ... 29? 


Till  CONTENTS. 

Inns, - 300 

The  Post-Office, 302 

The  Newspapers, 303 

The  Newsletters, 304 

The  Observator, 306 

Scarcity  of  Books  in  Country  Places, 307 

Female  Education, 308 

Literary  Attainments  of  Gentlemen, 309 

Influence  of  French  Literature 310 

Immorality  of  the  Polite  Literature  of  England, 312 

State  of  Science  in  England, 317 

State  of  the  Fine  Arts, 322 

State  of  the  Common  People ;  Agricultural  "Wages, 324 

Wages  of  Manufacturers, 327 

Labor  of  Children  in  Factories, 328 

Wages  of  different  Classes  of  Artisans, 328 

Number  of  Paupers 329 

Benefits  derived  by  the"  Common  People  from  the  Progress  of 

Civilization 332 

Delusion  which  leads  Men  to  overrate  the  Happiness  of  preced- 
ing Generations 334 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Death  of  Charles  the  Second, 336 

Suspicions  of  Poison, 345 

Speech  of  James  the  Second  to  the  Privy  Council, 348 

James  proclaimed, 349 

State  of  the  Administration 350 

New  Arrangements 361 

Sir  George  Jeffreys, 363 

The  Rcven-ue  collected  without  an  Act  of  Parliament, 357 

A  Parliament  called, 357 

Transactions  between  James  and  the  French  King, 358 

Churchill  sent  Ambassador  to  France ;  his  History, 361 

Feelings  of  the  Continental  Governments  towards  England, 364 

Policy  of  the  Court  of  Rome, 365 

Struggle  in  the  Mind  of  James ;  Fluctuations  of  his  Policy, 368 

Public  Celebration  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Rites  in  his  Palace,  . .  370 


CONTENTS.  IX 

His  Coronation, 371 

Enthusiasm  of  the  Tories ;  Addresses 374 

The  Elections 375 

Proceedings  against  Oates, 378 

Proceedings  against  Dangerfield, 383 

Proceedings  against  Baxter t»  385 

Meeting  of  the  Parliament  of  Scotland, 388 

Feeling  of  James  towards  the  Puritans, 390 

Cruel  Treatment  of  the  Scotch  Covenanters, 391 

Feeling  of  James  towards  the  Quakers 395 

William  Penn 396 

Peculiar  Favor  shown  to  Roman  Catholics  and  Quakers, 399 

Meeting  of  the  English  Parliament, 401 

Trevor  chosen  Speaker  ;  Character  of  Seymour, 402 

The  King's  Speech  to  the  Parliament 403 

Dehate  in  the  Commons  ;  Speech  of  Seymour 404 

Fhe  Revenue  voted, 406 

Proceedings  of  the  Commons  concerning  Religion, 406 

Additional  Taxes  voted  ;  Sir  Dudley  North, 407 

Proceedings  of  the  Lords, 409 

Bill  for  reversing  the  Attainder  of  Stafford, 410 


CHAPTER    V. 

Whig  Refugees  on  the  Continent, 412 

Their  Correspondents  in  England 412 

Characters  of  the  Leading  Refugees  ;  Ayloffe, 414 

Wade, 414 

Gp,odenough ;  Rumbold, 415 

Lord  Grey 416 

Monmouth, 417 

Ferguson, 418 

Scotch  Refugees ;  Earl  of  Argyle, 422 

Sir  Patrick  Hume, 425 

Sir  John  Cochrane  ;  Fletcher  of  Saltoun, 425 

Unreasonable  Conduct  of  the  Scotch  Refugees,  .  t 426 

Arrangements  for  an  Attempt  on  England  and  Scotland, 427 

John  Locke, 429 


X  CONTENTS. 

Preparations  made  by  the  Government  for  the  Defence  of 
Scotland;  Conversation  of  James  with  the  Dutch  Am- 
bassadors,  430 

Ineffectual  Attempts  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  01  the  States 

General  to  prevent  Argyle  from  sailing 431 

Departure  of  Argyle  from  Holland, 433 

He  lands  in  Scotland, 433 

His  Disputes  with  his  Followers, 434 

Temper  of  the  Scotch  Nation, 436 

Argyle's  Forces  dispersed, 439 

Argyle  a  Prisoner, 440 

His  Execution, 444 

Execution  of  Rumbold, 446 

Death  of  Ayloffe, 447 

Devastation  of  Argyleshire 448 

Ineffectual  Attempts  to  prevent  Monmouth  from  leaving  Holland,  449 

His  Arrival  at  Lyme, 451 

His  Declaration, 452 

His  Popularity  in  the  West  of  England, 453 

Encounter  of  the  Rebels  with  the  Militia  at  Bridport, <• . .  455 

Encounter  of  the  Rebels  with  the  Militia  at  Axminster, 456 

News  of  the  Rebellion  carried  to  London  ;  Loyalty  of  the  Parlia- 
ment,   457 

Reception  of  Monmouth  at  Taunton 460 

He  takes  the  Title  of  King 462 

His  Reception  at  Bridgewater, 465 

Preparations  of  the  Government  to  oppose  him,  466 

His  Design  on  Bristol, 469 

He  relinquishes  that  Design 470 

Skirmish  at  Philip's  Norton, 471 

Despondency  of  Monmouth, 472 

He  returns  to  Bridgewnter 474 

The  Royal  Army  encamps  at  Sedgemoor 475 

Battle  of  Sedgemoor, 477 

Pursuit  of  the  Rebels ;  Military  Executions, 483 

Flight  of  Monmouth, 484 

His  Capture 486 

His  Letter  to  the  King 487 

He  is  carried  to  London, 488 

His  Interview  with  the  King, 489 

FTis  Execution, 492 

Hia  Memory  cherished  by  the  Common  People 495 


CONTENTS.  XJ 

eiuelties  of  the  Soldiers  in  the  West ;  Kirke 497 

Jeffreys  sets  out  on  the  Western  Circuit, 602 

Trial  of  Alice  Lisle, /. 603 

The  Bloody  Assizes, 606 

Abraham  Holmes,  609 

Christopher  Battiscombe  ;  the  Hewlings 510 

Punishment  of  Tutchin, 611 

Rebels  transported,  512 

Confiscation  and  Extortion 614 

Rapacity  of  the  Queen  and  of  her  Ladies, 6 14 

Cases  of  Grey  and  Cochrane, 617 

Cases  of  Storey,  Wade,  Goodenough,  and  Ferguson, 617 

Jeffreys  made  Lord  Chancellor 519 

Trial  and  Execution  of  Cornish, 520 

Trials  and  Executions  of  Fernley  and  Elizabeth  Gaunt, 522 

Trial  and  Execution  of  Bateman, 624 

Cruel  Persecution  of  the  Protestant  Dissenters, 624 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER    1. 

i  PURPOSE  to  write  the  history  of  England  from  the  acces- 
sion of  King  James  the  Second  down  to  a  time  which 
is  within  the  memory  of  men  still  living.  I  shall  recount 
the  errors  which,  in  a  few  months,  alienated  a  loyal  gentry 
and  priesthood  from  the  House  of  Stuart.  I  shall  trace  the 
course  of  that  revolution  which  terminated  the  long  struggle 
between  our  sovereigns  and  their  parliaments,  and  bound  up 
together  the  rights  of  the  people  and  the  title  of  the  reigning 
dynasty.  I  shall  relate  how  the  new  settlement  was,  during 
many  troubled  years,  successfully  defended  against  foreign 
and  domestic  enemies ;  how,  under  that  settlement,  the  author- 
ity of  law  and  the  security  of  property  were  found  to  be  com- 
patible with  a  liberty  of  discussion  and  of  individual  action 
never  before  known ;  how,  from  the  auspicious  union  of  order 
and  freedom,  sprang  a  prosperity  of  which  the  annals  of 
human  affairs  had  furnished  no  example ;  how  our  country, 
from  a  state  of  ignominious  vassalage,  rapidly  rose  to  the 
place  of  umpire  among  European  powers ;  how  her  opulence 
and  her  martial  glory  grew  together ;  how,  by  wise  and  reso- 
lute good  faith,  was  gradually  established  a  public  credit 
fruitful  of  marvels  which,  to  .the  statesmen  of  any  former  age, 
would  have  seemed  incredible  ;  how  a  gigantic  commerce 
gave  birth  to  a  maritime  power,  compared  with  which  every 
other  maritime  power,  ancient  or  modern,  sinks  into  insignif- 
icance ;  how  Scotland,  after  ages  of  enmity,  was  at  length 
united  to  England,  not  merely  by  legal  bonds,  but  by  indisso- 
luble ties  of  interest  and  affection ;  how,  in  America,  the 
VOL.  i.  1 


2  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

British  colonies  rapidly  became  far  mightier  and  wealthier 
than  the  realms  which  Cortes  and  Pizarro  had  added  to  the 
dominions  of  Charles  the  Fifth ;  how,  in  Asia,  British  adven- 
turers founded  an  empire  not  less  splendid,  and  more  durable, 
than  that  of  Alexander. 

Nor  will  it  be  less  my  duty  faithfully  to  record  disasters 
mingled  with  triumphs,  and  great  national  crimes  and  follies 
far  more  humiliating  than  any  disaster.  It  will  be  seen  that 
even  what  we  justly  account  our  chief  blessings  were  not 
without  alloy.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  system  which  effectu- 
ally secured  our  liberties  against  the  encroachments  of  kingly 
power  gave  birth  to  a  new  class  of  abuses,  from  which  abso- 
lute monarchies  are  exempt.  It  will  be  seen  that,  in  conse- 
quence partly  of  unwise  interference,  and  partly  of  unwise 
neglect,  the  increase  of  wealth  and  the  extension  of  trade 
produced,  together  with  immense  good,  some  evils  from  which 
poor  and  rude  societies  are  free.  It  will  be  seen  how,  in  two 
important  dependencies  of  the  crown,  wrong  was  followed  by 
just  retribution ;  how  imprudence  and  obstinacy  broke  the  ties 
which  bound  the  North  American  colonies  to  the  parent  state  ; 
how  Ireland,  cursed  by  the  domination  of  race  over  race,  and 
of  religion  over  religion,  remained  indeed  a  member  of  the 
empire,  but  a  withered  and  distorted  member,  adding  no 
strength  to  the  body  politic,  and  reproachfully  pointed  at  by 
all  who  feared  or  envied  the  greatness  of  England. 

Yet,  unless  I  greatly  deceive  myself,  the  general  effect  of 
this  checkered  narrative  will  be  to  excite  thankfulness  in  all 
religious  minds,  and  hope  in  the  breasts  of  all  patriots.  For 
the  history  of  our  country  during  the  last  hundred  and  sixty 
years  is  eminently  the  history  of  physical,  of  moral,  and  of 
intellectual  improvement.  Those  who  compare  the  age  on 
which  their  lot  has  fallen  with  a  golden  age  which  exists  only 
in  their  imagination,  may  talk  of  degeneracy  and  decay ;  but 
no  man  who  is  correctly  informed  as  to  the  past  will  be  dis- 
posed to  take  a  morose  or  desponding  view  of  the  present. 

I  should  very  imperfectly  execute  the  task  which  I  have 
undertaken,  if  I  were  merely  to  treat  of  battles  and  sieges,  of 
the  rise  and  fall  of  administrations,  of  intrigues  in  the  palace, 
and  of  debates  in  the  parliament.  It  will  be  my  endeavor  to 
relate  the  history  of  the  people  as  well  as  the  history  of  the 
government ;  to  trace  the  progress  of  useful  and  ornamental 
arts ;  to  describe  the  rise  of  religious  sects  and  the  changes 
cf  literary  taste  ;  to  portray  the  manners  of  successive  g«n- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  6 

erations  ;  and  not  to  pass  by  with  neglect  even  the  revolutions 
which  have  taken  place  in  dress,  furniture,  repasts,  and  public 
amusements.  I  shall  cheerfully  bear  the  reproach  of  having 
descended  below  the  dignity  of  history,  if  I  can  succeed  in 
placing  before  the  English  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  true 
picture  of  the  life  of  their  ancestors. 

The  events  which  I  propose  to  relate  form  only  a  single  act 
of  a  great  and  eventful  drama,  extending  through  ages,  and 
must  be  very  imperfectly  understood,  unless  the  plot  of  the 
preceding  acts  be  well  known.  I  shall  therefore  introduce  my 
narrative  by  a  slight  sketch  of  the  history  cf  our  country  from 
the  earliest  times.  I  shall  pass  very  rapidly  over  many  cen- 
turies ;  but  I  shall  dwell  at  some  length  on  the  vicissitudes  of 
that  contest  which  the  administration  of  King  James  the 
Second  brought  to  a  decisive  crisis.* 

Nothing  in  the  early  existence  of  Britain  indicated  the  great- 
ness which  she  was  destined  to  attain.  Her  inhabitants,  when 
first  they  became  known  to  the  Tyrian  mariners,  were  little 
superior  to  the  natives  *of  the  Sandwich  Islands.  She  was 
subjugated  by  the  Roman  arms ;  but  she  received  only  a  f-iint 
tincture  of  Roman  arts  and  letters.  Of  the  western  provinces 
which  obeyed  the  Csesars,  she  was  the  last  that  was  conquered, 
and  the  first  that  was  flung  away.  No  magnificent  remains 
of  Latian  porches  and  aqueducts  are  to  be  found  in  Britain. 
No  writer  of  British  birth  is  reckoned  among  the  masters  of 
Latian  poetry  and  eloquence.  It  is  not  probable  that  the 
islanders  were  at  any  time  generally  familiar  with  the  tongue 
of  their  Italian  rulers.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the  vicinity  of 
the  Rhine,  the  Latin  has,  during  many  centuries,  been  pre- 
dominant. It  drove  out  the  Celtic ;  it  was  not  driven  out  by 
the  German ;  and  it  is  at  this  day  the  basis  of  the  French, 
Spanish,  and  Portuguese  languages.  In  our  island,  the  Latin 
appears  never  to  have  superseded  the  old  Gallic  speech,  and 
could  not  stand  its  ground  against  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

The  scanty  and  superficial  civilization  which  the  Britons 
had  derived  from  their  southern  masters,  was  effaced  by  the 

*  In  this,  and  in  the  next  chapter,  I  have  very  seldom  thought  it 
necessary  to  cite  authorities ;  for,  in  these  chapters,  I  have  not  de- 
tailed events  minutely,  or  used  recondite  materials ;  and  the  facts 
which  I  mention  are,  for  the  most  part,  such  that  a  person  tolerably 
well  read  in  English  history,  if  not  already  apprized  of  them,  will  at 
least  know  where  to  look  for  evidence  of  them.  In  the  subsequent 
chapters,  I  shall  carefully  indicate  the  sources  of  my  information. 


4  BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

calamities  of  the  fifth  century.  In  the  continental  kingdoms 
into  which  the  Roman  empire  was  then  dissolved,  the  con- 
querors learned  much  from  the  conquered  race.  In  Britain 
the  conquered  race  became.as  barbarous  as  the  conquerors. 

All  the  chiefs  who  founded  Teutonic  dynasties  in  the  con- 
tinental provinces  of  the  Roman  empire,  Alaric,  Theodoric, 
Clovis,  Alboin,  were  zealous  Christians.  The  followers  of 
Ida  and  Cerdic,  on  the  other  hand,  brought  to  their  settlements 
in  Britain  all  the  superstitions  of  the  Elbe.  While  the  Ger- 
man princes  who  reigned  at  Paris,  Toledo,  Aries,  and  Ra- 
venna, listened  with  reverence  to  the  instructions  of  bishops, 
adored  the  relics  of  martyrs,  and  took  part  eagerly  in  disputes 
touching  the  Nicene  theology,  the  rulers  of  Wessex  and  Mer- 
cia  were  still  performing  savage  rites  in  the  temples  of  Odin 
and  Zernebock. 

The  continental  kingdoms  which  had  risen  on  the  ruins  of 
the  Western  Empire  kept  up  some  intercourse  with  those  east- 
ern provinces,  where  the  ancient  civilization,  though  slowly 
fading  away  under  the  influence  of  misgovernment,  might  still 
astonish  and  instruct  barbarians,  where  the  court  still  exhibited 
the  splendor  of  Diocletian  and  Constantino,  where  the  public 
buildings  were  still  adorned  with  the  sculptures  of  Polycletus 
and  the  paintings  of  Apelles,  and  where  laborious  pedants, 
themselves  destitute  of  taste,  sense,  and  spirit,  could  still  read 
and  interpret  the  masterpieces  of  Sophocles,  of  Demosthenes, 
and  of  Plato.  From  this  communion  Britain  was  cut  off.  Her 
shores  were,  to  the  polished  race  which  dwelt  by  the  Bospo- 
rus, objects  of  a  mysterious  horror,  such  as  that  with  which 
the  lonians  of  the  age  of  Homer  had  regarded  the  Straits  of 
Scylla  and  the  city  of  the  Lsestrygonian  cannibals.  There 
was  one  province  of  our  island  in  which,  as  Procopius  had 
been  told,  the  ground  was  covered  with  serpents,  and  the  air 
was  such  that  no  man  could  inhale  it  and  live.  To  this  deso- 
late region  the  spirits  of  the  departed  were  ferried  over  from 
the  land  of  the  Franks  at  midnight.  A  strange  race  of  fisher- 
men performed  the  ghastly  office.  The  speech  of  the  dead 
was  distinctly  heard  by  the  boatmen :  their  weight  made  the 
keel  sink  deep  in  the  water ;  but  their  forms  were  invisible  to 
mortal  eye.  Such  were  the  marvels  which  an  able  historian", 
the  contemporary  of  Belisarius,  of  Simplicius,  and  of  Tribo- 
nian,  gravely  related  in  the  rich  and  polite  Constantinople, 
touching  the  country  in  which  the  founder  of  Constantinople 
had  assumed  the  imperial  purple.  Concerning  all  the  other 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  5 

provinces  of  the  Western  Empire,  we  have  continuous  infor- 
mation. It  is  only  in  Britain  that  an  age-  of  fable  completely 
separates  two  ages  of  truth.  Odoacer  and  Totila,  Euric  and 
Thrasimund,  Clovis,  Fredegonda,  and  Brunechild,  are  histor- 
ical men  and  women.  But  Hengist  and  Horsa,  Vortigern  and 
Rowena,  Arthur  and  Mordred  are  mythical  persons,  whose 
very  existence  may  be  questioned,  and  whose  adventures  must 
be  classed  with  those  of  Hercules  and  Romulus. 

At  length  the  darkness  begins  to  break;  and  the  country 
which  had  been  lost  to  view  as  Britain  reappears  as  England. 
The  conversion  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  Christianity  was  the 
first  of  a  long  series  of  salutary  revolutions.  It  is  true  that 
the  Church  had  been  deeply  corrupted  both  by  that  supersti- 
tion and  by  that  philosophy  against  which  she  had  long  con- 
tended, and  over  which  she  had  at  last  triumphed.  She  had 
given  a  too  easy  admission  to  doctrines  borrowed  from  the  an- 
cient schools,  and  to  rites  borrowed  from  the  ancient  temples. 
Roman  policy  and  Gothic  ignorance,  Grecian  ingenuity  and 
Syrian  asceticism,  had  contributed  to  deprave  her.  Yet  she 
retained  enough  of  the  sublime  theology  and  benevolent  mo- 
rality of  her  earlier  days,  to  elevate  many  intellects,  and  to 
purify  many  hearts.  Some  things  also,  which  at  a  later  period 
were  justly  regarded  as  among  her  chief  blemishes,  were,  in 
the  seventh  century,  and  long  afterwards,  among  her  chief 
merits.  That  the  sacerdotal  order  should  encroach  on  the 
functions  of  the  civil  magistrate  would,  in  our  time,  be  a  great 
evil.  But  that  which  in  an  age  of  good  government  is  an 
evil,  may,  in  an  age  of  grossly  bad  government,  be  a  blessing. 
It  is  better  that  mankind  should  be  governed  by  wise  laws, 
well  administered,  and  by  an  enlightened  public  opinion,  than 
by  priestcraft ;  but  it  is  better  that  men  should  be  governed 
by  priestcraft  than  by  brute  violence,  by  such  a  prelate  as 
Dunstan,  than  by  such  a  warrior  as  Penda.  A  society  sunk 
in  ignorance,  and  ruled  by  mere  physical  force,  has  great 
reason  to  rejoice  when  a  class,  of  which  the  influence  is  in- 
tellectual and  moral,  rises  to  ascendency.  Such  a  class  will 
doubtless  abuse  its  power ;  but  mental  power,  even  when 
abused,  is  still  a  nobler  and  better  power  than  that  which  con- 
sists merely  in  corporeal  strength.  We  read,  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  chronicles,  of  tyrants,  who,  when  at  the  height  of 
greatness,  were  smitten  with  remorse,  who  abhorred  the 
pleasures  and  dignities  which  they  had  purchased  by  guilt. 
who  abdicated  their  crowns,  and  who  sought  to  atone  for  they? 
1* 


6  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

offences,  by  cruel  penances  and  incessant  prayers.  These 
stories  have  drawn  forth  bitter  expressions  of  contempt  from 
some  writers,  who,  while  they  boasted  of  liberality,  were,  m 
truth,  as  narrow-minded  as  any  monk  of  the  dark  ages,  and 
whose  habit  was  to  apply  to  all  events,  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  the  standard  received  in  the  Parisian  society  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Yet,  surely,  a  system  which,  however 
deformed  by  superstition,  introduced  strong  moral  restraints 
into  communities  previously  governed  only  by  vigor  of  muscle 
and  by  audacity  of  spirit,  a  system  which  taught  the  fiercest 
and  mightiest  ruler,  that  he  was,  like  his  meanest  bondman,  a 
responsible  being,  might  have  seemed  to  deserve  a  more  re- 
spectful mention  from  philosophers  and  philanthropists. 

The  same  observations  will  apply  to  the  contempt  with 
which,  in  the  last  century,  it  was  fashionable  to  speak  of  the 
pilgrimages,  the  sanctuaries,  the  crusades,  and  the  monastic 
institutions  of  the  middle  ages.  In  times  when  men  were 
scarcely  ever  induced  to  travel,  by  liberal  curiosity,  or  by  the 
pursuit  of  gain,  it  was  better  that  the  rude  inhabitant  of  the 
North  should  visit  Italy  and  the  East  as  a  pilgrim,  than  that 
he  should  never  see  any  thing  but  those  squalid  cabins  and  un- 
cleared woods  amidst  which  he  was  born.  In  times  when  life 
and  when  female  honor  were  exposed  to  daily  risk  from  ty- 
rants and  marauders,  it  was  better  that  the  precinct  of  a  shrine 
should  be  regarded  with  an  irrational  awe,  than  that  there 
should  be  no  refuge  inaccessible  to  cruelty  and  licentiousness. 
In  times  when  statesmen  were  incapable  of  forming  extensive 
political  combinations,  it  was  better  that  the  Christian  nations 
should  be  roused  and  united  for  the  recovery  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  than  that  they  should,  one  by  one,  be  overwhelmed 
by  the  Mahometan  power.  Whatever  reproach  may,  at  a 
later  period,  have  been  justly  thrown  on  the  indolence  and 
luxury  of  religious  orders,  it  was  surely  good  that,  in  an  age 
of  ignorance  and  violence,  there  should  be  quiet  cloisters  and 
gardens,  in  which  the  arts  of  peace  could  be  safely  cultivated, 
in  which  gentle  and  contemplative  natures  could  find  an  asy- 
lum, in  which  one  brother  could  employ  himself  in  transcrib- 
ing the  JEneid  of  Virgil,  and  another  in  meditating  the  Ana- 
lytics of  Aristotle,  in  which  he  who  had  &  genius  for  art  might 
illuminate«a  martyrology  or  carve  a  crucifix,  and  in  which  he 
who  had  a  turn  for  natural  philosophy  might  make  experi- 
ments on  the  properties  *of  plants  and  minerals.  Had  not 
such  retreats  been  scattered  here  and  there,  among  the  huts 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  7 

of  a  miserable  peasantry,  and  the  castles  of  a  ferocious 
aristocracy,  European  society  woujd  have  consisted  merely 
of  beasts  of  burden  and  beasts  of  prey.  The  church  has 
many  times  been  compared  by  divines  to  that  ark,  of  which 
we  read  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  ;  but  never  was  the  resem- 
blance more  perfect  than  during  that  evil  time  when  she  alone 
rode,  amidst  darkness  and  tempest,  on  the  deluge  beneath 
which  all  the  great  works  of  ancient  power  and  wisdom  lay 
entombed,  bearing  within  her  that  feeble  germ  from  which  a 
Second  and  more  glorious  civilization  was  to  spring. 

Even  the  spiritual  supremacy  arrogated  by  the  pope  was, 
ul  the  dark  ages,  productive  of  far  more  good  than  evil.  Its 
effect  was  to  unite  the  nations  of  Western  Europe  in  one 
great  commonwealth.  What  the  Olympian  chariot  course  and 
the  Pythian  oracle  were  to  all  the  Greek  cities,  from  Trebizond 
to  Marseilles,  Rome  and  her  bishop  were  to  all  Christians  of 
the  Latin  communion,  from  Calabria  to  the  Hebrides.  Thus 
grew  up  sentiments  of  enlarged  benevolence.  Races  sepa- 
rated from  each  other  by  seas  and  mountains  acknowlpdged  a 
fraternal  tie  and  a  common  code  of  public  law.  Even  in 
war,  the  cruelty  of  the  conqueror  was  not  seldom  mitigated  by 
the  recollection  that  he  and  his  vanquished  enemies  were  all 
members  of  one  great  federation. 

Into  this  federation  the  Anglo-Saxons  were  now  admitted. 
A  regular  communication  was  opened  between  our  shores  and 
that  part  of  Europe  in  which  the  traces  of  ancient  power  and 
policy  were  yet  discernible.  Many  noble  monuments  which 
have  since  been  destroyed  or  defaced,  still  retained  their  pris- 
tine magnificence  ;  and  travellers,  to  whom  Livy  and  Sallust 
were  unintelligible,  might  gain  from  the  Roman  aqueducts 
and  temples  some  faint  notion  of  Roman  history.  The  dome 
of  Agrippa,  still  glittering  with  bronze,  the  mausoleum  of 
Adrian,  not  yet  deprived  of  its  columns  and  statues,  the 
Flavian  amphitheatre,  not  yet  degraded  into  a  quany,  told-  to 
the  Mercian  and  Northumbrian  pilgrims  some  part  of  the 
story  of  that  great  civilized  world  which  had  passed  away. 
The  islanders  returned,  with  awe  deeply  impressed  on  their 
half-opened  minds,  and  told  the  wondering  inhabitants  of  the 
hovels  of  London  and  York  that,  near  the  grave  of  Saint 
Peter,  a  mighty  race,  now  extinct,  had  piled  up  buildings 
which  would  never  be  dissolved  till  the  judgment  day.  Learn- 
ing followed  in  the  train  of  Christianity.  The  poetry  and 
eloquence  of  the  Augustan  age  was  assiduously  studied  in  the 


8  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Anglo-Saxon  monasteries.  The  names  of  Bede,  of  Alcuin, 
and  of  John,  surnamed  Erigena,  were  justly  celebrated  through- 
out Europe.  Such  was  the  state  of  our  country  when,  in  the 
ninth  century,  began  the  last  great  descent  of  the  northern 
barbarians. 

During  several  generations  Denmark  and  Scandinavia 
continued  to  pour  forth  innumerable  pirates,  distinguished  by 
strength,  by  valor,  by  merciless  ferocity,  and  by  hatred  of  the 
Christian  name.  No  country  suffered  so  much  from  these 
invaders  as  England.  Her  coast  lay  near  to  the  ports  whence 
they  sailed ;  nor  was  any  part  of  our  island  so  far  distant 
from  the  sea  as  to  be  secure  from  attack.  The  same 
atrocities  which  had  attended  the  victory  of  the  Saxon  over 
the  Celt,  were  now,  after  the  lapse  of  ages,  suffered  by  the 
Saxon  at  the  hand  of  the  Dane.  Civilization,  just  as  it  began 
to  rise,  was  met  by  this  blow,  and  sank  down  once  more. 
Large  colonies  of  adventurers  from  the  Baltic  established 
themselves  on  the  eastern  shores,  spread  gradually  westward, 
and,  supported  by  constant  reinforcements  from  beyond  the 
sea,  aspired  to  the  dominion  of  the  whole  realm.  The  strug- 
gle between  the  two  fierce  Teutonic  breeds  lasted  during  six 
generations.  Each  was  alternately  paramount.  Cruel  mas- 
sacres followed  by  cruel  retribution,  provinces  wasted,  con- 
vents plundered,  and  cities  razed  to  the  ground,  make  up  the 
greater  part  of  the  history  of  those  evil  days.  At  length  the 
North  ceased  to  send  forth  a  constant  stream  of  fresh  depre- 
dators, and  from  that  time  the  mutual  aversion  of  the  races 
began  to  subside.  Intermarriage  became  frequent.  The 
Danes  learned  the  religion  of  the  Saxons ;  and  thus  one  cause 
of  deadly  animosity  was  removed.  The  Danish  and  Saxon 
tongues,  both  dialects  of  one  wide-spread  language,  were 
blended  together.  But  the  distinction  between  the  two  nations 
was  by  no  means  effaced,  when  an  event  took  place  which 
prostrated  both,  in  common  slavery  and  degradation,  at  the 
feet  of  a  third  people. 

The  Normans  were  then  the  foremost  race  of  Christendom. 
Their  valor  and  ferocity  had  made  them  conspicuous  among 
the  rovers  whom  Scandinavia  had  sent  forth  to  ravage  Western 
Europe.  Their  sails  were  long  the  terror  of  both  coasts  of 
the  channel.  Their  arms  were  repeatedly  caried  far  into  the 
heart  of  the  Carlovingian  empire,  and  were  victorious  under 
the  walls  of  Maestricht  and  Paris.  At  length  one  of  the 
feeble  heirs  of  Charlemagne  ceded  to  the  strangers  a  fertile 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  9 

,  -watered  by  a  noble  river,  and  contiguous  to  the  sea 
whicn  was  tneir  favorite  element.  In  that  province  they 
founded  a  mighty  state,  which  gradually  extended  its  influence 
ovei  tne  neighboring  principalities  of  Britany  and  Maine. 
Witiiout  laying  aside  that  dauntless  valor  which  had  been  the 
terror  of  every  land  from  the-  Elbe  to  the  Pyrenees,  the 
Normans  rapidly  acquired  all,  and  more  than  all,  the  knowl- 
edge and  refinement  which  they  found  in  the  country  where 
they  settled.  Their  courage  secured  their  territory  against 
foreign  invasion.  They  established  internal  order,  such  as 
i /id  long  been  unknown  in  the  Frank  empire.  They  embraced 
Christianity,  and  with  Christianity  they  learned  a  great  part 
of  what  the  clergy  had  to  teach.  They  abandoned  their 
native  speech,  and  adopted  the  French  tongue,  in  which  the 
Latin  was  the  predominent  element.  They  speedily  raised 
their  new  language  to  a  dignity  and  importance  which  it  had 
never  before  possessed.  They  found  it  a  barbarous  jargon  ; 
they  fixed  it  in  writing  ;  and  they  employed  it  in  legislation, 
in  poetry,  and  in  romance.  They  renounced  that  brutal 
intemperance  to  which  air  vhe  other  branches  of  the  great 
German  family  were  too  much  inclined.  The  polite  luxury 
of  the  Norman  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  the  coarse 
voracity  and  drunkenness  of  his  Saxon  and  Danish  neighbors. 
He  loved  to  display  his  magmricence,  not  in  huge  piles  of 
food  and  hogsheads  of  strong  drink,  but  in  large  and  stately 
edifices,  rich  armor,  gallant  horses,  choice  falcons,  well- 
ordered  tournaments,  banquets  delicate  rather  than  abundant, 
and  wines  remarkable  rather  for  their  exquisite  flavor  than  for 
their  intoxicating  power.  That  chivalrous  spirit  which  has 
exercised  so  powerful  an  influence  on  the  politics,  morals,  and 
manners  of  all  the  European  nations,  was  found  in  the  highest 
exaltation  among  the  Norman  nobles.  Those  nobles  were 
distinguished  by  their  graceful  bearing  and  insinuating  ad- 
dress. They  were  distinguished  also  by  their  skill  in  nego- 
tiation, and  by  a  natural  eloquence  which  they  assiduously 
cultivated.  It  was  the  boast  of  one  of  their  historians  that 
the  Norman  gentlemen  were  orators  from  the  cradle.  But 
their  chief  fame  was  derived  from  their  military  exploits. 
Every  country,  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the  Dead  Sea, 
witnessed  the  prodigies  of  their  discipline  and  valor.  One 
Norman  knight,  at  the  head  of  a  handful  of  warriors,  scat- 
tered the  Celts  of  Connaught.  Another  founded  the  monarchy 
of  the  Two  Sicilies,  and  saw  the  emperors  both  of  the  East 


10  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  of  the  West  fly  before  his  arms.  A  third,  the  Ulysses  of  the 
first  crusade,  was  invested  by  his  fellow-soldiers  with  the 
sovereignty  of  Antioch ;  and  a  fourth,  the  Tancred  whose 
name  lives  in  the  great  poem  of  Tasso,  was  celebrated  through 
Christendom  as  the  bravest  and  most  generous  of  the  cham- 
pions of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 

The  vicinity  of  so  remarkable  a  people  early  began  to 
produce  an  effect  on  the  public  mind  of  England.  Before 
the  Conquest,  English  princes*  received  their  education  in 
Normandy.  English  sees  and  English  estates  were  bestowed 
on  Normans.  Norman-French  was  familiarly  spoken  in  the 
palace  of  Westminster.  The  court  of  Rouen  seems  to  have 
been  to  the  court  of  Edward  the  Confessor  what  the  court  of 
Versailles  long  afterwards  was  to  the  court  of  Charles  the 
Second. 

The  battle  of  Hastings,  and  the  events  which  followed  it, 
not  only  placed  a  Duke  of  Normandy  on  the  English  throne, 
but  gave  up  the  whole  population  of  England  to  the  tyranny 
of  the  Norman  race.  The  subjugation  of  a  nation  by  a  nation 
has  seldom,  even  in  Asia,  been  more  complete.  The  country 
was  portioned  out  among  the  captains  of  the  invaders.  Strong 
military  institutions,  closely  connected  with  the  institution  of 
property,  enabled  the  foreign  conquerors  to  oppress  the  chil- 
dren of  the  soil.  A  cruel  penal  code,  cruelly  enforced, 
guarded  the  privileges,  and  even  the  sports,  of  the  alien 
tyrants.  Yet  the  subject  race,  though  beaten  down  and 
trodden  under  foot,  still  made  its  sting  felt.  Some  bold  men, 
the  favorite  heroes  of  our  oldest  ballads,  betook  themselves  to 
the  woods,  and  there,  in  defiance  of  curfew  laws  and  forest 
laws,  waged  a  predatory  war  against  their  oppressors.  As- 
sassination was  an  event  of  daily  occurrence.  Many  Nor- 
mans suddenly  disappeared,  leaving  no  trace.  The  corpses 
of  many  were  found  bearing  the  marks  of  violence.  Death 
by  torture  was  denounced  against  the  murderers,  and  strict 
search  was  made  for  them,  but  generally  in  vain ;  for  the 
whole  nation  was  in  a  conspiracy  to  screen  them.  It  was  at 
length  thought  necessary  to  lay  a  heavy  fine  on  every  Hundred 
in  which  a  person  of  French  extraction  should  be  found  slain  ; 
and  this  regulation  was  followed  up  by  another  regulation, 
providing  that  every  person  who  was  found  slain  should  be 
supposed  to  be  a  Frenchman,  unless  he  were  proved  to  be  a 
Saxon. 

During  the  century  and  a  half  which  followed  the  Conquest, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  11 

here  is,  to  speak  strictly,  no  English  history.  The  French 
kings  of  England  rose,  indeed,  to  an  eminence  which  wasjhe 
wonder  and  dread  of  all  neighboring  nations.  They  conquered 
Ireland.  They  received  the  homage  of  Scotland.  By  their 
valor,  by  their  policy,  by  their  fortunate  matrimonial  alliances, 
they  became  far  more  powerful  on  the  Continent  than  their  liege 
lords,  the  kings  of  France.  Asia,  as  well  as  Europe,  was  daz- 
zled by  their  power  and  glory.  Arabian  chroniclers  recorded 
with  unwilling  admiration  the  fall  of  Acre,  the  defence  of  Joppa, 
and  the  victorious  march  to  Ascalon ;  and  Arabia*n  mothers  long 
awed  their  infants  to  silence  with  the  name  of  the  lion-hearted 
Plantagenet.  At  one  time  it  seemed  that  the  line  of  Hugh  Capet_ 
was  about  to  end  as  the  Merovingian  and  Carlovingian  lines  had 
ended,  and  that  a  single  great  monarchy  would  spread  from  the 
Orkneys  to  the  Pyrenees.  So  strong  an  association  is  estab- 
lished in  most  minds  between  the  greatness  of  a  sovereign  and 
the  greatness  of  the  nation  which  he  rules,  that  almost  every 
historian  of  England  has  expatiated  with  a  sentiment  of  exul- 
tation on  the  power  and  splendor  of  her  foreign  masters,  and 
has  lamented  the  decay  of  that  power  and  splendor  as  a 
calamity  to  our  country.  This  is,  in  truth,  as  absurd  as  it 
would  be  in  a  Haytian  negro  of  our  time  to  dwelt  with  na- 
tional pride  on  the  greatness  of  Lewis  the  Fourteenth,  and  to 
speak  of  Blenheim  and  Ramilies  with  patriotic  regret  and 
shame.  The  Conqueror  and  his  descendants  to  the  fourth 
generation  were  not  Englishmen :  most  of  them  were  born  in 
France  :  they  spent  the  greater  part  of  their  lives  in  France  : 
their  ordinary  speech  was  French :  almost  every  high  office 
in  their  gift  was  filled  by  a  Frenchman :  every  acquisition 
which  they  made  on  the  Continent  estranged  them  more  and 
more  from  the  population  of  our  island.  One  of  the  ablest 
among  them  indeed  attempted  to  win  the  hearts  of  his  Eng- 
lish subjects  by  espousing  an  English  princess.  But,  by 
many  of  his  barons,  this  marriage  was  regarded  as  a  mar- 
riage between  a  white  planter  and  a  quadroon  girl  would  now 
be  regarded  in  Virginia.  In  history  he  is  known  by  the  hon- 
orable surname  of  Beauclerc ;  but,  in  his  own  time,  his  own 
countrymen  called  him  by  a  Saxon  nickname,  in  contemptu- 
ous allusion  to  his  Saxon  connection. 

Had  the  Plantagenets,  as  at  one  time  seemed  likely,  suc- 
ceeded in  uniting  all  France  under  their  government,  it  is 
probable  that  England  would  never  have  had  an  independent 
existence.  Her  princes,  her  lords,  her  prelates,  would  have 


12  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

been  men  differing  in  race  and  language  from  the  artisans 
and  the  tillers  of  the  earth.  The  revenues  of  her  great  pro- 
prietors would  have  been  spent  in  festivities  and  diversions  on 
the  banks  of  the  Seine.  The  noble  language  of  Milton  and 
Burke  would  have  remained  a  rustic  dialect,  without  a  litera- 
ture, a  fixed  grammar,  or  a  fixed  orthography,  and  would 
have  been  contemptuously  abandoned  to  the  use  of  boors. 
No  man  of  English  extraction  would  have  risen  to  eminence, 
except  by  becoming  in  speech  and  habits  a  Frenchman. 

England  owes  her  escape  from  such  calamities  to  an  event 
which  her  historians  have  generally  represented  as  disastrous. 
Her  interest  was  so  directly  opposed  to  the  interest  of  her 
rulers  that  she  had  no  hope  but  in  their  errors  and  misfortunes. 
The  talents  and  even  the  virtues  of  her  six  first  French  kings 
were  a  curse  to  her.  The  follies  and  vices  of  the  seventh 
were  her  salvation.  Had  John  inherited  the  great  qualities 
of  his  father,  of  Henry  Beauclerc,  or  of  the  Conqueror,  nay, 
had  he  even  possessed  the  martial  courage  of  Stephen  or  of 
Richard,  and  had  the  King  of  France  at  the  same  time  been 
as  incapable  as  all  the  other  successors  of  Hugh  Capet  had 
been,  the  House  of  Plantagenet  must  have  risen  to  unrivalled 
ascendency  in  Europe.  But,  just  at  this  conjuncture,  France, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  death  of  Charlemagne,  was  gov- 
erned by  a  prince  of  great  firmness  and  ability.  On  the 
other  hand,  England,  which,  since  the  battle  of  Hastings,  had 
been  ruled  generally  by  wise  statesmen,  always  by  brave 
soldiers,  fell  under  the  dominion  of  a  trifler  and  a  coward. 
From  that  moment  her  prospects  brightened.  John  was 
driven  from  Normandy.  The  Norman  nobles  were  com- 
pelled to  make  their  election  between  the  island  and  the  con- 
tinent. Shut  up  by  the  sea  with  the  people  whom  they  had 
hitherto  oppressed  and  despised,  they  gradually  came  to  re- 
gard England  as  their  country,  and  the  English  as  their  coun- 
trymen. The  two  races,  so  long  hostile,  soon  found  that  they 
had  common  interests  and  common  enemies.  Both  were 
alike  aggrieved  by  the  tyranny  of  a  bad  king.  Both  were 
alike  indignant  at  the  favor  shown  by  the  court  to  the  natives 
of  Poitou  and  Aquitaine.  The  great  grandsons  of  those  who 
had  fought  under  William  and  the  great  grandsons  of  those 
who  had  fought  under  Harold  began  to  draw  near  to  each 
other  in  friendship ;  and  the  first  pledge  of  their  reconciliation 
was  the  Great  Charter,  won  by  their  united  exertions,  and 
'ramed  for  their  common  benefit. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  13 

Here  commences  the  history  of  the  English  nation.  The 
history  of  the  preceding  events  is  the  history  of  wrongs 
inflicted  and  sustained  by  various  tribes,  which  indeed  all 
dwelt  on  English  ground,  but  which  regarded  each  other  with 
aversion  such  as  has  scarcely  ever  existed  between  communi- 
ties separated  by  physical  barriers.  For  even  the  mutual 
animosity  of  countries  at  war  with  each  other  is  languid  when 
compared  with  the  animosity  of  nations  which,  morally  sep- 
arated, are  yet  locally  intermingled.  In  no  country  has  the 
enmity  of  race  been  carried  farther  than  in  England.  In  no 
country  has  that  enmity  been  more  completely  effaced.  The 
stages  of  the  process  by  which  the  hostile  elements  were 
melted  down  into  one  homogeneous  mass  are  not  accurately 
known  to  us.  But  it  is  certain  that,  when  John  became  king, 
the  distinction  between  Saxons  and  Normans  was  strongly 
marked,  and  that  before  the  end  of  the  reign  of  his  grandson 
it  had  almost  disappeared.  In  the  time  of  Richard  the  First,  > 
the  ordinary  imprecation  of  a  Norman  gentleman  was,  "  May 
I  become  an  Englishman  !  "  His  ordinary  form  of  indignant 
denial  was,  "  Do  you  take  me  for  an  Englishman  ?  "  The 
descendant  of  such  a  gentleman  a  hundred  years  later  was 
proud  of  the  English  name. 

The  sources  of  the  noblest  rivers  which  spread  fertility 
over  continents,  and  bear  richly -laden  fleets  to  the  sea,  are  to 
be  sought  in  wild  and  barren  mountain  tracts,  incorrectly  laid 
down  in  maps,  and  rarely  explored  by  travellers.  To  such  a 
a  tract  the  history  of  our  country  during  the  thirteenth  century 
may  not  unaptly  be  compared.  Sterile  and  obscure  as  is  that 
portion  of  our  annals,  it  is  there  that  we  must  seek  for  the 
origin  of  our  freedom,  our  prosperity,  and  our  glory.  Then 
it  was  that  the  great  English  people  was  formed,  that  the' 
national  character  began  to  exhibit  those  peculiarities  which  it 
has  ever  since  retained,  and  that  our  fathers  became  emphat- 
ically islanders,  islanders  not  merely  in  geographical  position, 
but  in  their  politics,  their  feelings,  and  their  manners.  Then 
first  appeared  with  distinctness  that  constitution  which  has  ever 
since,' through  all  changes,  preserved  its  identity;  that  constitu- 
tion of  which  all  the  other  free  constitutions  in  the  world  are 
copies,  and  which,  in  spite  of  some  defects,  deserves  to  be 
regarded  as  the  best  under  which  any  great  society  has  ever 
yet  existed  during  many  ages.  Then  it  was  that  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  archetype  of  all  the  representative  assem- 
blies which  now  meet,  either  in  the  Old  or  in  the  New  World 
VOL  i.  '2 


14  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

held  its  first  sittings.  Then  it  was  that  th€  ,«ommon  law  rose 
to  the  dignity  of  a  science,  and  rapidly  bt  ame  a  not  unwor- 
thy rival  of  the  imperial  jurisprudence.  Then  it  was  that  the 
courage  of  those  sailors  who  manned  the  rude  barks  of  the 
Cinque  Ports  first  mads  the  flag  of  England  terrible  on  the 
seas.  Then  it  was  that  the  most  ancient  colleges  which  still 
exist  at  both  the  great  national  seats  of  learning  were  founded. 
Then  was  formed  that  language,  less  musical  indeed  than  the 
languages  of  the  south,  but  in  force,  iff  richness,  in  aptitude  for 
all  the  highest  purposes  of  the  poet,  the  philosopher,  and  the 
orator,  inferior  to  that  of  Greece  alone.  Then  too  appeared 
the  first  faint  dawn  of  that  noble  literature,  the  most  splendid 
and  the  most  durable  of  the  many  glories  of  England. 

Early  in  the  fourteenth  century  the  amalgamation  of  the 
races  was  all  but  complete  ;  and  it  was  soon  made  manifest 
by  signs  not  to  be  mistaken,  that  a  people  inferior  to  none 
existing  in  the  world  had  been  formed  by  the  mixture  of  three 
branches  of  the  great  Teutonic  family  with  each  other,  and 
with  the  aboriginal  Britons.  There  was,  indeed,  scarcely 
any  thing  in  common  between  the  England  to  which  John 
had  been  chased  by  Philip  Augustus^  and  the  England  from 
which  the  armies  of  Edward  the  Third  went  forth  to  conquer 
France. 

A  period  of  more  than-  a  hundred  years  followed,  during 
which  the  chief  object  of  the  English  was  to  establish,  by 
force  of  arms,  a  great  empire  on  the  Continent.  The  claim 
of  Edward  to  the  inheritance  occupied  by  the  House  of  Valois 
was  a  claim  in  which  it  might  seem  that  his  subjects  were 
little  interested.  But  the  passion  for  conquest  spread  fast 
from  the  prince  to  the  people.  The  war  differed  widely  from 
the  wars  which  the  Plantagenets  of  the  twelfth  century  had 
waged  against  the  descendants  of  Hugh  Capet.  For  the  suc- 
cess of  Henry  the  Second,  or  of  Richard  the  First,  would 
have  made  England  a  province  of  France.  The  effect  of  the 
successes  of  Edward  the  Third  and  of  Henry  the  Fifth  was  to 
make  France,  for  a  time,  a  province  of  England.  The  disdain 
with  which,  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  conquerors  from  the 
Continent  had  regarded  the  islanders,  was  now  retorted  by 
the  islanders  on  the  people  of  the  Continent.  Every  yeoman 
from  Kent  to  Northumberland  valued  himself  as  one  of  a 
race  born  for  victory  and  dominion,  and  looked  down  with 
scorn  on  the  nation  before  which  his  ancestors  had  trembled 
Even  those  knights  of  Gascony  and  Guienne  who  had  fough/ 


HISTOBY    OF    ENGLAND.  15 

gallantly  under  oie  Black  Prince  were  regarded  by  the  Eng- 
lish as  men  of  an  inferior  breed,  and  were  contemptuously 
excluded  from  honorable  and  lucrative  commands.  In  no 
long  time  our  ancestors  altogether  lost  sight  of  the  original 
ground  of  quarrel.  They  began  to  consider  the  crown  of 
France  as  a  mere  appendage  to  the  crown  of  England  ;  and 
when,  in  violation  of  the  ordinary  law  of  succession,  they 
transferred  the  crown  of  England  to  the  house  of  Lancaster, 
they  seem  to  have  thought  that  the  right  of  Richard  the  Sec- 
ond to  the  crown  of  France  passed,  as  of  course,  to  that 
house.  The  zeal  and  vigor  which  they  displayed  present  a 
remarkable  contrast  to  the  torpor  of  the  French,  who  were  far 
more  deeply  interested  in  the  event  of  the  struggle.  The 
greatest  victories  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  middle  ages 
were  gained  at  this  time,  against  great  odds,  by  the  English 
armies.  Victories  indeed  they  were  of  which  a  nation  may 
justly  be  proud ;  for  they  are  to  be  attributed  to  the  moral 
superiority  of  the  victors,  a  superiority  which  was  most  striking 
hi  the  lowest  ranks.  The  knights  of  England  found  worthy 
rivals  in  the  knights  of  France.  Chandos  encountered  an 
equal  foe  in  Du  Guesclin.  But  France  had  no  infantry  that 
dared  to  face  the  English  bows  and  bills.  A  French  king 
was  brought  prisoner  to  London.  An  English  king  was 
crowned  at  Paris.  The  banner  of  Saint  George  was  carried 
far  beyond  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Alps.  On  the  south  of  the 
Ebro  the  English  won  a  great  battle,  which  for  a  time  decided 
the  fate  of  Leon  and  Castile ;  and  the  English  companies 
obtained  a  terrible  preeminence  among  the  bands  of  warriors 
who  let  out  their  weapons  for  hire  to  the  princes  and  com- 
monwealths of  Italy. 

Nor  were  the  arts  of  peace  neglected  by  our  fathers  during 
that  stirring  period.  While  France  was  wasted  by  war,  till  she 
at  length  found  in  her  own  desolation  a  miserable  defence 
against  invaders,  the  English  gathered  in  their  harvests,  adorned 
their  cities,  pleaded,  traded,  and  studied  in  security.  Many  of 
our  noblest  architectural  monuments  belong  to  that  age.  Then 
rose  the  fair  chapels  of  New  Gollege  and  of  Saint  George,  tho 
nave  of  Winchester  and  the  choir  of  York,  the  spire  of  Salis- 
bury, and  the  majestic  towers  of  Lincoln.  A  copious  and  for- 
cible language,  formed  by  an  infusion  of  Norman-French  into 
German,  was  now  the  common  property  of  the  aristocracy  and 
of  the  people.  Nor  was  it  long  before  genius  began  to  apply 
hat  admirable  machine  to  worthy  purposes.  While  English  bat- 


16  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

talions,  leaving  behind  them  the  devastated  provinces  of  France, 
entered  Valladolid  in  triumph,  and  spread  terror  to  the  gates, 
of  Florence,  English  poets  depicted  in  vivid  tints  all  the  wide 
variety  cf  human  manners  and  fortunes,  and  English  thinkers 
aspired  to  know,  or  dared  to  doubt,  where  bigots  had  been 
content  to  wonder  and  to  believe.  The  same  age  which  pro- 
duced the  Black  Prince  and  Derby,  Chandos  and  Hawkwood, 
produced  also  Geoffrey  Chaucer  and  John  Wycliffey 

In  so  splendid  and  imperial  a  manner  did  the  English  peo- 
ple, properly  so  called,  first  take  place  among  the  nations  of 
the  world.  Yet,  while  we  contemplate  with  pleasure  the  high 
and  commanding  qualities  which  our  forefathers  displayed, 
we  cannot  but  admit  that  the  end  which  they  pursued  was  an 
end  condemned  both  by  humanity  and  by  enlightened  policy, 
and  that  the  reverses  which  compelled  them,  after  a  long  and 
bloody  struggle,  to  relinquish  the  hope  of  establishing  a  great 
continental  empire,  were  really  blessings  in  the  guise  of 
disasters.  The  spirit  of  the  French  was  at  last  aroused. 
They  began  to  oppose  a  vigorous  national  resistance  to  the 
foreign  conquerors.  And  from  that  time  the  skill  of  the 
English  captains  and  the  courage  of  the  English  soldiers 
were,  happily  for  mankind,  exerted  in  vain.  After  many 
desperate  struggles,  and  with  many  bitter  regrets,  our  ances- 
tors gave  up  the  contest.  Since  that  age  no  British  govern- 
ment has  ever  seriously  and  steadily  pursued  the  design  of 
making  great  conquests  on  the  Continent.  The  people,  indeed, 
continued  to  cherish  with  pride  the  recollection  of  Cressy,  of 
Poitiers,  and  of  Agincourt.  Even,  after  the  lapse  of  many 
years  it  was  easy  to  fire  their  blood  and  to  draw  forth  their 
subsidies  by  promising  them  an  expedition  for  the  conquest 
of  France.  But  happily  the  energies  of  our  country  have 
been  directed  to  better  objects  ;  and  she  now  occupies  in  the 
history  of  mankind  a  place  far  more  glorious  than  if  she  had, 
as  at  one  time  seemed  not  improbable,  acquired  by  the  sword 
an  ascendency  similar  to  that  which  formerly  belonged  to  the 
Roman  republic. 

Cooped  up  once  more  within  the  limits  of  the  island,  the 
warlike  people  employed  in  civil  strife  those  arms  which  had 
been  the  terror  of  Europe.  The  means  of  profuse  expen- 
diture had  long  been  drawn  by  the  English  barons  from  the 
oppressed  provinces  of  France.  That  source  of  supply  was 
gone  :  but  the  ostentatious  and  luxurious  habits  which  pros- 
perity had  engendered  still  remained  ;  and  the  great  lordst 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  17 

unable  to  gratify  their  tastes  by  plundering  the  French,  were 
eager  to  plunder  each  other.  The  realm  to  which  they  were 
now  confined  would  not,  in  the  phrase  of  Comines,  the  most 
judicious  observec  of  that  time,  suffice  for  them  all.  Two 
aristocratical  factions,  headed  by  two  branches  of  the  royal 
family,  engaged  in  a  long  and  fierce  struggle  for  supremacy. 
As  the  animosity  of  those  factions  did  not  really  arise  from 
the  dispute  about  the  succession,  it  lasted  long  after  all  ground 
of  dispute  about  the  succession  was  removed.  The  party  of 
the  Red  Rose  survived  the  last  prince  who  claimed  the  crown 
in  right  of  Henry  the  Fourth.  The  party  of  the  White  Rose 
survived  the  marriage  of  Richmond  and  Elizabeth.  Left 
without  chiefs  who  had  any  decent  show  of  right,  the  adhe- 
rents of  Lancaster  rallied  round  a  line  of  bastards,  and  the 
adherents  of  York  set  up  a  succession  of  impostors.  When, 
at  length,  many  aspiring  nobles  had  perished  on  the  field  of 
battle  or  by  the  hands  of  the  executioner,  when  many  illus- 
trious houses  had  disappeared  forever  from  history,  when 
those  great  families  which  remained  had  been  exhausted  and 
sobered  by  great  calamities,  it  was  universally  acknowledged 
that  the  claims  of  all  the  contending  Plantagenets  were  united 
in  the  house  of  Tudor. 

Meanwhile  a  change  was  proceeding  infinitely  more  mo- 
mentous than  the  acquisition  or  loss  of  any  province,  than 
the  rise  or  fall  of  any  dynasty.  Slavery,  and  the  evils  by 
which  slavery  is  every  where  accompanied,  were  fast  dis- 
appearing. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  two  greatest  and  most  salutary 
social  revolutions  which  have  taken  place  in  England,  that 
revolution  which,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  put  an  end  to  the 
tyranny  of  nation  over  nation,  and  that  revolution  which,  a 
few  generations  later,  put  an  end  to  the  property  of  man  in 
man,  were  silently  and  imperceptibly  effected.  They  struck 
contemporary  observers  with  no  surprise,  and  have  received 
from  historians  a  very -scanty  measure  of  attention.  They 
were  brought  about  neither  by  legislative  regulation  nor  by 
physical  force.  Moral  causes  noiselessly  effaced,  first  the 
distinction  between  Norman  and  Saxon,  and  then  the  dis- 
tinction between  master  and  slave.  None  can  venture  to  fix 
the  precise  moment  at  which  either  distinction  ceased.  Some 
faint  traces  of  the  old  Norman  feeling  might-  perhaps  have 
been  found  late  in  the  fourteenth  century.  Some  faint  traces 
of  the  institution  of  villenage  were  detected  by  the  curious  so 
2* 


18  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

late  as  the  days  of  the  Stuarts ;  nor  has  that  institution  ever 
to  this  hour,  been  abolished  by  statute. 

It  would  be  most  unjust  not  to  acknowledge  that  the  chief 
agent  in  these  two  great  deliverances  was.  religion ;  and  it 
may,  perhaps,  be  doubted  whether  a  purer  religion  might  not 
have  been  found  a  less  efficient  agent.  The  benevolent  spirit 
of  the  Christian  morality  is  undoubtedly  adverse  to  distinctions 
of  caste.  But  to  the  Church  of  Rome  such  distinctions  are 
peculiarly  odious,  for  they  are  incompatible  with  other  dis- 
tinctions which  are  essential  to  her  system.  She  ascribes  to 
every  priest  a  mysterious  dignity,  which  entitles  him  to  the 
reverence  of  every  layman ;  and  she  does  not  consider  any 
man  as  disqualified,  by  reason  of  his  nation  or  of  his  family 
for  the  priesthood.  Her  doctrines  respecting  the  sacerdotal 
character,  however  erroneous  they  may  be,  have  repeatedly 
mitigated  some  of  the  worst  evils  which  can  afflict  society 
That  superstition  cannot  be  regarded  as  unmixedly  noxious 
which,  in  regions  cursed  by  the  tyranny  of  race  over  race 
creates  an  aristocracy  altogether  independent  of  race,  inverts 
the  relation  between  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed,  and 
compels  the  hereditary  master  to  kneel  before  the  spiritual 
tribunal  of  the  hereditary  bondman.  To  this  day,  in  some 
countries  where  negro  slavery  exists,  Popery  appears  in  ad- 
vantageous contrast  to  other  forms  of  Christianity.  It  is  noto- 
rious that  the  antipathy  between  the  European  and  African 
races  is  by  no  means  so  strong  at  Rio  Janeiro  as  at  Washing- 
ton. In  our  own  country,  this  peculiarity  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  system  produced,  during  the  middle  ages,  many  sal- 
utary effects.  It  is  true  that,  shortly  after  the  battle  of  Has- 
tings, Saxon  prelates  and  abbots  were  violently  deposed,  and 
that  ecclesiastical  adventurers  from  the  Continent  were  intruded 
by  hundreds  into  lucrative  benefices.  Yet,  even  then,  pious 
divines  of  Norman  blood  raised  their  voices  against  such  a 
violation  of  the  constitution  of  the  church,  refused  to  accept 
mitres  from  the  hands  of  the  Conqueror,  and  charged  him,  on 
the  peril  of  his  soul,  not  to  forget  that  the  vanquished  islanders 
were  his  fellow-Christians.  The  first  protector  whom  the 
English  found  among  the  dominant  caste  was  Archbishop 
Anselm.  At  a  time  when  the  English  name  was  a  reproach, 
and  when  all  the  civil  and  military  dignities  of  the  kingdom 
were  supposed  to  belong  exclusively  to  the  countrymen  of  the 
Conqueror,  the  despised  race  learned,  with  transports  of  de- 
light, that  one  of  themselves,  Nicholas  <Breakspear,  had  been 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  ,  19 


elevated  to  the  papal  throne,  arid  had  held  out  his  foot  to  be 
kissed  by  ambassadors  sprung  from  the  noblest  houses  of  Nor- 
mandy. It  was  a  national  as  well  as  a  religious  feeling  that 
drew  great  multitudes  to  the  shrine  of  Becket,  the  first  Eng- 
lishman who,  since  the  Conquest,  had  been  terrible  to  the 
foreign  tyrants.  A  successor  of  Becket  was  foremost  among 
those  who  obtained  that  charter  which  secured  at  once  the 
privileges  of  the  Norman  barons  and  of  the  Saxon  yeomanry. 
How  great  a  part  the  Catholic  ecclesiastics  subsequently  had 
in  the  abolition  of  viflenage,  we  learn  from  the  unexception- 
able testimony  of  Sir  Thomas  Smith,  one  of  the  ablest  Prot- 
estant counsellors  of  Elizabeth.  When  the  dying  slaveholder 
asked  for  the  last  sacraments,  his  spiritual  attendants  regularly 
adjured  him,  as  he  loved  his  soul,  to  emancipate  his  brethren 
for  whom  Christ  had  died.  So  successfully  had  the  church 
used  her  formidable  machinery,  that,  before  the  Reformation 
came,  she  had  enfranchised  almost  all  the  bondmen  in  the 
kingdom  except  her  own,  who,  to  do  her  justice,  seem  to  havo 
been  very  tenderly  treated. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  when  these  two  great  revolu- 
tions had  been  effected,  our  forefathers  were  by  far  the  best 
governed  people  in  Europe.  During  three  hundred  years,  the 
social  system  had  been  in  a  constant  course  of  improvement. 
Cinder  the  first  Plantagenets,  there  had  been  barons  able  to  bid 
defiance  to  the  sovereign,  and  peasants  degraded  to  the  level 
of  the  swine  and  oxen  which  they  tended.  The  exorbitant 
power  of  the  baron  had  been  gradually  reduced.  The  condi- 
tion of  the  peasant  had  been  gradually  elevated.  Between 
the  aristocracy  and  the  working  people  had  sprung  up  a  mid- 
dle class,  agricultural  and  commercial.  There  was  still,  it 
may  be,  more  inequality  than  is  favorable  to  the  happiness 
and  virtue  of  our  species  ;  but  no  man  was  altogether  above 
the  restraints  of  law  ;  and  no  man  was  altogether  below  its 
protection. 

That  the  political  institutions  of  England  were,  at  this  early 
period,  regarded  by  the  English  with  pride  and  affection,  and 
by  the  most  enlightened  men  of  neighboring  nations  with 
admiration  and  envy,  is  proved  by  the  clearest  evidence. 
But,  touching  the  nature  of  those  institutions,  there  has  been 
much  dishonest  and  acrimonious  controversy. 

The  historical  literature  of  England  has  indeed  suffered 
grievously  from  a  circumstance  which  has  not  a  little  con- 
tributed to  her  prosperity.  The  change,  great  as  it  is,  which 


20  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND/ 

her  polity  has  undergone  during  the  last  six  centuries,  has 
been  the  effect  of  gradual  development,  not  of  demolition  and 
reconstruction.  The  present  constitution  of  our  country  is, 
to  the  constitution  under  which  she  flourished  five  hundred 
years  ago,  what  the  tree  is  to  the  sapling,  what  the  man  is  to 
the  boy.  The  alteration  has  been  great.  Yet  there  never 
was  a  moment  at  which  the  chief  part  of  what  existed  was 
not  old.  A  polity  thus  formed  must  abound  in  anomalies. 
But  for  the  evils  arising  from  mere  anomalies  we  have  ample 
compensation.  Other  societies  possess  written  constitutions 
more  symmetrical.  But  no  other  society  has  yet  succeeded  in 
uniting  revolution  with  prescription,  progress  with  stability, 
the  energy  of  youth  with  the  majesty  of  immemorial  antiquity. 
This  great  blessing,  however,  has  its  drawbacks ;  and  one 
of  those  drawbacks  is,  that  every  source  of  information  as  to 
our  early  history  has  been  poisoned  by  party  spirit.  As 
there  is  no  country  where  statesmen  have  been  so  much 
under  the  influence  of  the  past,  so  there  is  no  country  where 
historians  have  been  so  much  under  the  influence  of  the 
present.  Between  these  two  things,  indeed,  there  is  a  natural 
connection.  Where  history  is  regarded  merely  as  a  picture 
of  life  and  manners,  or  as  a  collection  of  experiments  from 
which  general  maxims  of  civil  wisdom  may  be  drawn,  a 
writer  lies  under  no  very  pressing  temptation  to  misrepresent 
transactions  of  ancient  date.  But  where  history  is  regarded 
as  a  repository  of  title-deeds,  on  which  the  rights  of  govern- 
ments and  nations  depend,  the  motive  to  falsification  becomes 
almost  irresistible.  A  Frenchman  is  not  now  impelled  by  any 
strong  interest  either  to  exaggerate  or  to  underrate  the  power 
qf  the  kings  of  the  house  of  Valois.  The  privileges  of  the 
States  General,  of  the  states  of  Brittany,  of  the  states  of 
Burgundy,  are  now  matters  of  as  little  practical  importance 
as  the  constitution  of  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim,  or  of  the  Am 
phictyonic  Council.  The  gulf  of  a  great  revolution  com 
pletely  separates  the  new  from  the  old  system.  No  suet 
chasm  divides  the  existence  of  the  English  nation  into  twc 
distinct  parts.  Our  laws  and  customs  have  never  been  los* 
in  general  and  irreparable  ruin.  With  us,  the  precedents  of 
the  middle  ages  are  still  valid  precedents,  and  are  still  cited 
on  the  gravest  occasions,  by  the  most  eminent  statesmen 
Thus,  when  King  George  the  Third  was  attacked  by  the  mal 
ady  which  made  him  incapable  of  performing  his  rega 
functions,  and  when  the  most  distinguished  lawyers  and  pol 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  21 

ticians  differed  widely  as  to  the  course  which  ought,  in  such 
circumstances,  to  be  pursued,  the  houses  of  parliament  would 
not  proceed  to  discuss  any  plan  of  regency  till  all  the  exam- 
ples which  were  to  be  found  in  our  annals,  from  the  earliest 
times,  had  been  collected  and  arranged.  Committees  were 
appointed  to  examine  the  ancient  records  of  the  realm.  The 
first  precedent  reported  was  that  of  the  year  1217  :  much 
importance  was  attached  to  the  precedents  of  1326,  of 
1377,  and  of  1422 ;  but  the  case  which  was  justly  considered 
as  most  in  point  was  that  of  1455.  Thus  in  our  country  the 
dearest  interests  of  parties  have  frequently  been  staked  on  the 
results  of  the  researches  of  antiquaries.  The  inevitable  con- 
sequence was,  that  our  antiquaries  conducted  their  researches 
in  the  spirit  of  partisans. 

It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  those  who  have  written 
concerning  the  limits  of  prerogative  and  liberty  in  the  old 
polity  of  England  should  generally  have  shown  the  temper,  not 
of  judges,  but  of  angry  and  uncandid  advocates.  For  they 
were  discussing,  not  a  speculative  matter,  but  a  matter  which 
had  a  direct  and  practical  connection  with  the  most  momen- 
tous and  exciting  disputes  of  their  own  day.  From  the  com 
mencement  of  the  long  contest  between  the  parliament  and 
the  Stuarts,  down  to  the  time  when  the  pretensions  of  the 
Stuarts  ceased  to  be  formidable  few  questions  were  practi- 
cally more  important  than  the  question  whether  the  adminis- 
tration of  that  family  had  or  had  not  been  in  accordance  with 
the  ancient  constitution  of  the  kingdom.  This  question  could 
be  decided  only  by  reference  to  the  records  of  preceding 
reigns;  Bracton  and  Fleta,  the  Mirror  of  Justice  and  the 
Rolls  of  Parliament,  were  ransacked  to  find  pretexts  for  the 
excesses  of  the  Star  Chamber  on  one  side,  and  of  the  High 
Court  of  Justice  on  the  other.  During  a  long  course  of  years 
every  Whig  historian  was  anxious  to  prove  that  the  old  Eng- 
lish government  was  all  but  republican,  every  Tory  historian 
to  prove  that  it  was  all  but  despotic. 

With  such  feelings,  both  parties  looked  into  the  chronicles 
of  the  middle  ages.  Both  readily  found  what  they  sought ; 
and  both  obstinately  refused  to  see  any  tiling  but  what  they 
sought.  The  champions  of  the  Stuarts  could  easily  point  out 
instances  of  oppression  exercised  on  the  subject.  The  de- 
fenders of  the  Roundheads  could  as  easily  produce  instances 
of  determined  and  successful  resistance  offered  to  the  Crown. 
The  Tories  quoted,  from  ancient  writings,  expressions  almost 


22  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

as  servile  as  were  heard  from  the  pulpit  of  Mainwaring. 
Thr,  Whigs  discovered  expressions  as  bold  and  severe  as  any 
that  resounded  from  the  judgment-seat  of  Bradshaw.  One 
set  of  writers  adduced  numerous  instances  in  which  kings  had 
extorted  money  without  the  authority  of  parliament.  Anothei 
se*  cited  cases  in  which  the  parliament  had  assumed  to  itself 
tne  power  of  inflicting  punishment  on  kings.  Those  who  saw 
only  one  half  of  the  evidence  would  have  concluded  that  the 
Plantagenets  were  as  absolute  as  the  Sultans  of  Turkey  : 
those  who  saw  only  the  other  half  would  have  concluded  that 
the  Plantagenets  had  as  little  real  power  as  the  Doges  of 
Venice;  and  both  conclusions  would  have  been  equally  re- 
mote from  the  truth. 

The  old  English  government  was  one  of  a  class  of  limited 
monarchies  which  sprang  up  in  Western  Europe  during  the 
middle  ages,  and  which,  notwithstanding  many  diversities, 
bore  to  one  another  a  strong  family  likeness.  That  there 
should  have  been  such  a  likeness  is  not  strange.  The  coun- 
tries in  which  those  monarchies  arose  had  been  provinces  of 
the  same  great  civilized  empire,  and  had  been  overrun  and 
conquered,  about  the  same  time,  by  tribes  of  the  same  rude 
and  warlike  nation.  *  They  were  members  of  the  same  great 
coalition  against  Islam.  They  were  in  communion  with  the 
same  superb  and  ambitious  church.  Their  polity  naturally 
took  the  same  form.  They  had  institutions  derived  partly 
from  imperial  Rome,  partly  from  papal  Rome,  partly  from  the 
old  Germany.  All  had  kings ;  and  in  all  the  kingly  office 
became  by  degrees  strictly  hereditary.  All  had  nobles  bear- 
ing titles  which  had  originally  indicated  military  rank.  The 
dignity  of  knighthood,  the  rules  of  heraldry,  were  common 
to  all.  All  had  richly  endowed  ecclesiastical  establishments, 
municipal  corporations  enjoying  large  franchises,  and  senates 
whose  consent  was  necessary  to  the  validity  of  some  public 
acts. 

Of  these  kindred  constitutions  the  English  was,  from  an 
early  period,  justly  reputed  the  best.  The  prerogatives  of  the 
sovereign  were  undoubtedly  extensive.  The  spirit  of  religion, 
and  the  spirit  of  chivalry,  concurred  to  exalt  his  dignity. 
The  sacred  oil  had  been  poured  on  his  head.  It  was  no  dis- 
paragement to  the  bravest  and  noblest  knights  to  kneel  at  his 
feet.  His  person  was  inviolable.  He  alone  was  entitled  to 
convoke  the  estates  of  the  realm.  He  could  at  his  pleasure 
dismiss  them  ;  and  his  assent  was  necessary  to  all  their  legis- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  23 

tative  acts.  He  was  the  chief  of  the  executive  administration 
;he  sole  organ  of  communication  with  foreign  powers,  the 
eaptain  of  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  state,  the  foun- 
tain of  justice,  of  mercy,  and  of  honor.  He  had  large  pow- 
ers for  the  regulation  of  trade.  It  was  by  him  that  money 
was  coined,  that  weights  and  measures  werti  fixed,  that  marts 
and  havens  were  appointed.  His  ecclesiastical  patronage  was 
immense.  His  hereditary  revenues,  economically  adminis- 
tered, sufficed  to  ment  the  ordinary  charges  of  government. 
His  own  domains  were  of  vast  extent.  He  was  also  feudal 
lord  paramount  of  the  whole  soil  of  his  kingdom,  and,  in  that 
capacity,  possessed  many  lucrative  and  many  formidable 
rights,  which  enabled  him  to  annoy  and  depress  those  who 
thwarted  him,  and  to  enrich  and  aggrandize,  without  any  cost 
to  himself,  those  who  enjoyed  his  favor. 

But  his  power,  though  ample,  was  limited  by  three  great 
constitutional  principles,  so  ancient  that  none  can  say  when 
they  began  to  exist,  so  potent  that  their  natural  development, 
continued  through  many  generations,  has  produced  the  order 
of  things  under  which  we  now  live. 

First,  the  king  could  not  legislate  without  the  consent  of 
his  parliament.  Secondly,  he  could  impose  no  taxes  without 
the  consent  of  his  parliament.  Thirdly,  he  was  bound  to 
conduct  the  executive  administration  according  to  the  laws  of 
the  land,  and,  if  he  broke  those  laws,  his  advisers  and  his 
igents  were  responsible. 

No  candid  Tory  will  deny  that  these  principles  had,  five 
hundred  years  ago,  acquired  the  authority  of  fundamental 
rules.  On  the  other  hand,  no  candid  Whig  will  affirm  that 
they  were,  till  a  later  period,  cleared  from  all  ambiguity,  or 
followed  out  to  all  their  consequences.  A  constitution  of  the 
middle  ages  was  not,  like  a  constitution  of  the  eighteenth  or 
nineteenth  century,  created  entire  by  a  single  act,  and  fully 
set  forth  in  a  single  document.  It  is  only  in  a  refined  and 
speculative  age  that  a  polity  is  constructed  on  system.  In 
rude  societies  the  progress  of  government  resembles  the 
progress  of  language  and  of  versification.  Rude  societies 
have  language,  and  often  copious  and  energetic  language  : 
but  they  have  no  scientific  grammar,  no  definitions  of  nouns 
and  verbs,  no  names  for  declensions,  moods,  tenses,  and 
voices.  Rude  societies  .have  versification,  and  often  versifica- 
tion of  great  power  and  sweetness :  but  they  have  no  metrical 
canons  ;  and  the  minstrel  whose  numbers,  regulated  solely  by 


24  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

his  ear,  are  the  delight  of  his  audience,  would  himself  be  un- 
able to  say  of  how  many  dactyles  and  trochees  each  of  his 
lines  consists.  As  eloquence  exists  before  syntax,  and  song 
before  prosody,  so  government  may  exist  in  a  high  degree  of 
excellence  long  before  the  limits  of  legislative,  executive,  and 
judicial  power  have  been  traced  with  precision. 

It  was  thus  in  our  country.  The  line  which  bounded  the 
royal  prerogative,  though  in  general  sufficiently  clear,  had 
not  every  where  been  drawn  with  accuracy  and  distinctness. 
There  was,  therefore,  near  the  border  some  debatable  ground 
on  which  incursions  and  reprisals  continued  to  take  place, 
till,  after  ages  of  strife,  plain  and  durable  landmarks  were  at 
length  set  up.  It  may  be  instructive  to  note  in  what  way,  and 
to  what  extent,  our  ancient  sovereigns  were  in  the  habit  of 
violating  the  three  great  principles  by  which  the  liberties  of 
the  nation  were  protected. 

No  English  king  has  ever  laid  claim  to  the  general  legisla- 
tive power.  The  most  violent  and  imperious  Plantagenet 
never  fancied  himself  competent  to  enact,  without  the  consent 
of  his  great  council,  that  a  jury  should  consist  of  ten  persons 
instead  of  twelve ;  that  a  widow's  dower  should  "be  a  fourth 
part  instead  of  a  third ;  that  perjury  should  be  a  felony ;  or 
that  the  custom  of  gavelkind  should  be  introduced  into  York- 
shire..* But  the  king  had  the  power  of  pardoning  offenders ; 
and  there  is  one  point  at  which  the  power  of  pardoning  and 
the  power  of  legislating  seem  to  fade  into  each  other,  and  may 
easily,  at  least  in  a  simple  age,  be  confounded.  A  penal 
statute  is  virtually  annulled  if  the  penalties  which  it  imposes 
are  regularly  remitted  as  often  as  they  are  incurred.  The 
sovereign  was  undoubtedly  competent  to  remit  penalties  with- 
out limit.  He  was  therefore  competent  to  annul  virtually  a 
penal  statute.  It  might  seem  that  there  could  be  no  serious 
objection  to  his  doing  formally  what  he  might  do  virtually. 
Thus,  with  the  help  of  subtle  and  courtly  lawyers,  grew  up, 
on  the  doubtful  frontier  which  separates  executive  from  legis- 
lative functions,  that  great  anomaly  known  as  the  dispensing 
power. 

That  the  king-  could  not  impose  taxes  without  the  consent 
of  parliament  is  admitted  to  have,  been,  from  time  immemo- 
rial, a  fundamental  law  of  England.  It  was  among  the  arti- 

*  This  is  excellently  put  by  Mr.  Ilallam,  in  the  first  chapter  of  his 
Constitutional  History.  . 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  25 

cles  which  John  was  compelled  by  the  Barons  to  sign.  Ed- 
ward the  First  ventured  to  break  through  the  rule ;  but,  able, 
powerful,  and  popular  as  he  was,  he  encountered  an  opposition 
to  which  he  found  it  expedient  to  yield.  He  covenanted, 
accordingly,  in  express  terms,  for  himself  and  his  heirs,  that 
they  would  never  again  levy  any  aid  without  the  assent  and 
good  will  of  the  estates  of  the  realm.  His  powerful  and  vic- 
torious grandson  attempted  to  violate  this  solemn  compact ; 
but  the  attempt  was  strenuously  withstood.  At  length,  the 
Plantagenets  gave  up  the  point  in  despair ;  but,  though  they 
ceased  to  infringe  the  law  openly,  they  occasionally  contrived, 
by  evading  it,  to  procure  an  extraordinary  supply  for  a  tem- 
porary purpose.  They  were  interdicted  from  taxing ;  but 
they  claimed  the  right  of  begging  and  borrowing.  They 
therefore  sometimes  begged  in  a  tone  not  to  be  distinguished 
from  that  of  command,  and  sometimes  borrowed  with  small 
thought  of  repaying.  But  the  fact  that  it  was  thought  neces- 
sary to  disguise  these  exactions  under  the  names  of  benevo- 
lences and  loans,  sufficiently  proves  that  the  authority  of  the 
great  constitutional  rule  was  universally  recognized. 

The  principle  that  the  King  of  England  was  bound  to  con- 
duct the  administration  according  to  law,  and  that,  if  he  did 
any  thing  against  law,^is  advisers  and  agents  were  answera- 
ble,  was  established  at  a  very  early  period,  as  the  severe 
judgments  pronounced  and  executed  on  many  royal  favorites 
sufficiently  prove.  It  is,  however,  certain  that  the  rights  of 
individuals  were  often  violated  by  the  Plantagenets,  and  that 
the  injured  parties  were  often  unable  to  obtain  redress.  Ac- 
cording to  law,  no  Englishman  could  be  arrested  or  detained 
in  confinement  merely  by  the  mandate  of  the  sovereign.  In 
fact,  persons  obnoxious  to  the  government  were  frequently 
imprisoned  without  any  other  authority  than  a  royal  order. 
According  to  law,  torture,  the  disgrace  of  the  Roman  jurispru- 
dence, could  not,  in  any  circumstances,  be  inflicted  on  an 
English  subject.  Nevertheless,  during  the  troubles  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  a  rack  was  introduced  into  the  Tower,  and 
was  occasionally  used  under  the  plea  of  political  necessity. 
But  it  would  be  a  great  error  to  infer,  from  such  irregularities, 
that  the  English  monarchs  were,  either  in  theory  or  in  prac- 
tice, absolute.  We  live  in  a  highty-civilized  society,  in  which 
intelligence  is  so  rapidly  diffused  by  means  of  the  press  and 
of  the  post-office,  that  any  gross  act  of  oppression  committed 
in  any  part  of  our  island  is,  in  a  few  hours,  discussed  by  mil- 
VOL.  i.  3 


26  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

lions.  If  an  English  sovereign  were  now  to  immure  a  subjec* 
in  defiance  of  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus,  or  to  put  a  con- 
spirator to  the  torture,  the  whole  nation  would  be  instantly 
electrified  by  the  news.  In  the  middle  ages,  the  state  of  soci- 
ety was  widely  different.  Rarely,  and  with  great  difficulty, 
did  the  wrongs  of  individuals  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
public.  A  man  might  be  illegally  confined  during  many 
months  in  the  castle  of  Carlisle  or  Norwich,  and  no  whisper 
of  the  transaction  might  reach  London.  It  is  highly  probable 
.hat  the  rack  had  been  many  years  in  use  before  the  great 
majority  of  the  nation  had  the  least  suspicion  that  it  was  ever 
employed.  Nor  were  our  ancestors  by  any  means  so  much 
alive  as  we  are  to  the  importance  of  maintaining  great  general 
rules.  We  have  been  taught,  by  long  experience,  that  we 
cannot,  without  danger,  suffer  any  breach  of  the  constitution 
to  pass  unnoticed.  It  is  therefore  now  universally  held  that  a 
government  which  unnecessarily  exceeds  its  powers  ought  to 
be  visited  with  severe  parliamentary  censure,  and  that  a  gov- 
ernment which,  under  the  pressure  of  a  great  exigency,  and 
with  pure  intentions,  has  exceeded  its  powers,  ought,  without 
delay,  to  apply  to  parliament  for  an  act  of  indemnity.  But 
such  were  not  the  feelings  of  the  Englishmen  of  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries.  They  were  little  disposed  to 
contend  for  a  principle  merely  as  a  principle,  or  to  cry  out 
against  an  irregularity  which  was  not  also  felt  to  be  a  griev- 
ance. As  long  as  the  general  spirit  of  the  administration  was 
mild  and  popular,  they  were  willing  to  allow  some  latitude  to 
their  sovereign.  If,  for  ends  generally  acknowledged  to  be 
good,  he  exerted  a  vigor  beyond  the  law,  they  not  only  for- 
gave, but  applauded  him,  and,  while  they  enjoyed  security 
and  prosperity  under  his  rule,  were  but  too  ready  to  believe 
that  whoever  had  incurred  his  displeasure  had  deserved  it. 
But  to  this  indulgence  there  was  a  limit :  nor  was  that  king 
wise  who  presumed  far  on  the  forbearance  of  the  English 
people.  They  might  sometimes  allow  him  to  overstep  the 
constitutional  line  ;  but  they  also  claimed  the  privilege  of  over- 
stepping that  line  themselves,  whenever  his  encroachments 
were  so  serious  as  to  excite  alarm.  If,  not  content  with  occa- 
sionally oppressing  individuals,  he  dared  to  oppress  great 
masses,  hU  subjects  promptly  appealed  to  the  laws,  and,  that 
appeal  fai1  g,  appealed  as  promptly  to  the  God  of  battles. 

They  mv^it  indeed  safely  tolerate  a  king  in  a  few  excesses  ; 
for  they  had  in  reserve  a  check  which  soon   brought   the 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  27 

fiercest  and  proudest  king  to  reason  —  the  check  of  physical 
force.  It  is  difficult  for  an  Englishman  of  the  nineteenth 
century  to  image  to  himself  the  facility  and  rapidity  with 
which,  four  hundred  years  ago,  this  check  was  applied.  The 
people  have  long  unlearned  the  use  of  arms.  The  art  of  war 
has  been  carried  to  a  perfection  unknown  to  our  forefathers, 
and  the  knowledge  of  that  art  is  confined  to  a  particular  class. 
A  hundred  thousand  troops,  well  disciplined  and  commanded, 
will  keep  down  millions  of  ploughmen  and  artisans.  A  few 
regiments  of  household  troops  are  sufficient  to  overawe  all 
the  discontented  spirits' of  a  large  capital.  In  the  mean  time, 
the  effect  of  the  constant  progress  of  wealth  has  been  to  make 
insurrection  far  more  terrible  to  thinking  men  than  maladmin- 
istration. Immense  sums  have  been  expended  on  works 
which,  if  a  rebellion  broke  out,  might  perish  in  a  few  hours. 
The  mass  of  movable  wealth  collected  in  the  shops  and  ware- 
houses of  London  alone  exceeds  five  hundred-fold  that  which 
the  whole  island  contained  in  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets ; 
and,  if  the  government  were  subverted  by  physical  force,  all 
his  movable  wealth  would  be  exposed  to  imminent  risk  of 
(Spoliation  and  destruction.  Still  greater  would  be  the  risk  to 
public  credit,  on  which  thousands  of  families  directly  depend 
for  subsistence,  and  with  which  the  credit  of  the  whole  com- 
mercial world  is  inseparably  connected.  It  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  a'  civil  war  of  a  week  on  English  ground  would 
now  produce  disasters  which  would  be  felt  from  the  Hoangho 
to  the  Missouri,  and  of  which  the  traces  would  be  discernible 
at  the  distance  of  a  century.  In  such  a  state  of  society, 
resistance  must  be  regarded  as  a  cure  more  desperate  than 
almost  any  malady  which  can  afflict  the  state.  In  the  middle 
ages,  on  the  contrary,  resistance  was  an  ordinary  remedy  for 
political  distempers  —  a  remedy  which  was  always  at  hand, 
and  which,  though  doubtless  sharp  at  the  moment,  produced 
no  deep  or  lasting  ill  effects.  If  a  popular  chief  raised  his 
standard  in  a  popular  cause,  an  irregular  army  could  x  .  as- 
sembled in  a  day.  Regular  army  there  was  none.  Eveiy 
man  had  a  slight  tincture  of  soldiership,  and  scarcely  any  man 
more  than  a  slight  tincture.  The  national  wealth  consisted 
chiefly  in  flocks  and  herds,  in  the  harvest  of  the  year,  and  in 
the  simple  buildings  inhabited  by  the  people.  All  the  furni- 
ture, the  stock  of  shops,  the  machinery  which  could  be  found 
in  the  realm,  was  of  less  value  than  the  property  which  some 
single  parishes  now  contain.  Manufactures  were  rude,  credit 


28  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

almost  unknown.  Society,  therefore,  recovered  from  the 
shock  as  soon  as  the  actual  conflict  was  over.  The  calami- 
ties of  civil  war  were  confined  to  the  slaughter  on  the  field  of 
battle,  and  to  a  few  subsequent  executions  and  confiscations. 
In  a  week  the  peasant  was  driving  his  team  and  the  esquire 
flying  his  hawks  over  the  fsld  of  Towton,  or  of  Bosworth,  aa 
if  no  extraordinary  event  had  interrupted  the  regular  course 
of  human  life. 

A  hundred  and  sixty  years  have  now  elapsed  since  the  Eng- 
lish people  have  by  force  subverted  a  government.  During 
the  hundred  and  sixty  years  which  preceded  the  union  of  the 
Roses,  nine  kings  reigned  in  England.  Six  of  these  nine 
kings  were  deposed.  Five  lost  their  lives  as  well  as  their 
crowns.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  any  comparison  between 
our  ancient  and  our  modern  polity  must  lead  to  most  erro- 
neous conclusions,  unless  large  allowance  be  made  -for  the 
effect  of  that  restraint  which  resistance  and  the  fear  of  resist- 
ance constantly  imposed  on  the  Plantagenets.  As  our  ances- 
tors had  against  tyranny  a  most  important  security  which  we 
want,  they  might  safely  dispense  with  some  securities  to  which 
we  justly  attach  the  highest  importance.  As  we  cannot, 
without  the  risk  of  evils  from  which  the  imagination  recoils, 
employ  physical  force  as  a  check  on  misgovernment,  it  is 
evidently  our  wisdom  to  keep  all  the  constitutional  checks  on 
misgovernment  in  the  highest  state  of  efficiency,  to  watch 
with  jealousy  the  first  beginnings  of  encroachment,  and  never 
to  suffer  irregularities,  even  when  harmless  in  themselves,  to 
pass  unchallenged,  lest  they  acquire  the  force  of  precedents. 
Four  hundred  years  ago  such  minute  vigilance  might  seem 
unnecessary.  A  nation  of  hardy  archers  and  spearmen  might, 
with  small  risk  to  its  liberties,  connive  at  some  illegal  acts  on 
the  part  of  a  prince  whose  general  administration  was  good, 
and  whose  throne  was  not  defended  by  a  single  company  of 
regular  soldiers. 

Under  this  system,  rude  as  it  may  appear  when  compared 
with  those  elaborate  constitutions  of  which  the  last  seventy 
years  have  been  fruitful,  the  English  long  enjoyed  a  large 
measure  of  freedom  and  happiness.  Though,  during  the  fee- 
ble reign  of  Henry  the  Sixth,  the  state  was  torn  first  by  fac- 
tions, and  at  length  by  civil  war,  though  Edward  the  Fourth 
was  a  prince  of  dissolute  and  imperious  character,  though 
Rbhard  the  Third  has  generally  been  represented  as  a  mon- 
ster of  depravity,  though  the  exactions  of  Henry  the  Seventh 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  29 

caused  great  repining,  it  is  certain  that  our  ancestors,  under 
those  kings,  were  far  better  governed  than  the  Belgians  under 
Philip,  surnamed  the  Good,  or  the  French  under  that  Lewis 
who  was  styled  the  father  of  his  people.  Even  while  the  wars 
of  the  Roses  were  actually  raging,  our  country  appears  to 
have  been  in  a  happier  condition  than  the  neighboring  realms 
during  years  of  profound  peace.  Comines  was  one  of  the 
most  enlightened  statesmen  of  his  time.  He  had  seen  all  the 
richest  and  most  highly  civilized  parts  of  the  Continent.  He 
had  lived  in  the  opulent  towns  of  Flanders,  the  Manchesters 
and  Liverpools  of  the  fifteenth  century.  He  had  visited  Flor- 
ence, recently  adorned  by  the  magnificence  of  Lorenzo,  and 
Venice,  not  yet  humbled  by  the  confederates  of  Cambray. 
This  eminent  man  deliberately  pronounced  England  to  be  the 
best  governed  country  of  which  he  had  any  knowledge.  Her 
constitution  he  emphatically  designated  as  a  just  and  holy 
thing,  which,  while  it  protected  the  people,  really  strengthened 
the  hands  of  a  prince  who  respected  it.  In  no  other  country, 
he  said,  were  men  so  effectually  secured  from  wrong.  The 
calamities  produced  by  our  intestine  wars  seemed  to  him  to 
be  confined  to  the  nobles  and  the  fighting  men,  and  to  leave 
no  traces  such  as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  see  elsewhere, 
no  ruined  dwellings,  no  depopulated  cities. 

It  was  not  only  by  the  efficiency  of  the  restraints  imposed 
on  the  royal  prerogative  that  England  was  advantageously 
distinguished  from  most  of  the  neighboring  countries.  A 
peculiarity  equally  important,  though  less  noticed,  was  the 
relation  in  which  the  nobility  stood  here  to  the  commonalty. 
There  was  a  strong  hereditary  aristocracy ;  but  it  was  of  all 
hereditary  aristocracies  the  least  insolent  and  exclusive.  It 
had  none  of  the  invidious  character  of  a  caste.  It  was  con- 
stantly receiving  members  from  the  people  and  constantly 
sending  down  members  to  mingle  with  the  people.  Any  gen- 
tleman might  become  a  peer.  The  younger  son  of  a  peer 
was  but  a  gentleman.  Grandsons  of  peers  yielded  precedence 
to  newly-made  knights.  The  dignity  of  knighthood  was  not 
beyond  the  reach  of  any  man  who  could,  by  diligence  and 
thrift,  realize  a  good  estate,  or  who  could  attract  notice  by  his 
valor  in  a  battle  or  a  siege.  It  was  regarded  as  no  disparage- 
ment for  the  daughter  of  a  duke,  nay,  of  a  royal  duke,  to  es- 
pouse a  distinguished  commoner.  Thus,  Sir  John  Howard 
married  the  daughter  of  Thomas  Mowbray,  Duke  of  Norfolk. 
Sir  Richard  Pole  married  the  Countess  of  Salisbury,  daughter 
3* 


30  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  George,  Duke  of  Clarence.  Good  blood  was  indeed  helu 
in  high  respect ;  but  between  good  blood  and  the  privileges 
of  peerage  there  was,  most  fortunately  for  our  country,  no 
necessary  connection.  Pedigrees  as  long,  and  scutcheons  as 
old,  were  to  be  found  out  of  the  House  of  Lords  as  in  it 
There  were  new  men  who  bore  the  highest  titles.  There 
were  untitled  men  well  known  to  be  descended  from  knights 
who  had  broken  the  Saxon  ranks  at  Hastings  and  scaled  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem.  There  were  Bohuns,  Mowbrays,  De 
Veres,  nay,  kinsmen  of  the  House  of  Plantagenet,  with  no 
higher  addition  than  that  of  esquire,  and  with  no  civil  privi- 
leges beyond  those  enjoyed  by  every  farmer  and  shopkeeper. 
There  was  therefore  here  no  line  like  that  which  in  some 
other  countries  divided  the  patrician  from  the  plebeian.  The 
yeoman  was  not  inclined  to  murmur  at  dignities  to  which  his 
own  children  might  rise.  The  grandee  was  not  inclined  to 
insult  a  class  into  which  his  own  children  must  descend. 

After  the  wars  of  York  and  Lancaster,  the  links  which  con- 
nected the  nobility  and  the  commonalty  became  closer  and 
more  numerous  than  ever.  The  extent  of  the  destruction 
which  had  fallen  on  the  old  aristocracy  may  be  inferred  from 
a  single  circumstance.  In  the  year  1451  Henry  the  Sixth 
summoned  fifty-three  temporal  lords  to  parliament.  The  tem- 
poral lords  summoned  by  Henry  the  Seventh  to  the  parlia- 
ment of  1485  were  only  twenty-nine,  and  of  these  twenty- 
nine  several  had  recently  been  elevated  to  the  peerage. 
During  the  following  century  the  ranks  of  the  nobility  were 
largely  recruited  from  among  the  gentry.  The  constitution 
of  the  House  of  Commons  tended  greatly  to  promote  the  sal- 
utary intermixture  of  classes.  The  knight  of  the  shire  was 
the  connecting  link  between  the  baron  and  the  shopkeeper. 
On  the  same  benches  on  which  sate  the  goldsmiths,  drapers, 
and  grocers,  who  had  been  returned  to  parliament  by  the  com- 
mercial towns,  sate  also  members  who,  in  any  other  country, 
would  have  been  called  noblemen,  hereditary  lords  of  manors, 
entitled  to  hold  courts  and  to  bear  coat  armor,  and  able  to 
trace  back  an  honorable  descent  through  many  generations. 
Some  of  them  were  younger  sons  and  brothers  of  great  lords. 
Others  could  boast  even  of  royal  blood.  At  length  the  eldest 
son  of  an  Earl  of  Bedford,  called  in  courtesy  by  the  second 
title  of  his  father,  offered  himself  as  candidate  for  a  seat  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  his  example  was  followed  by 
others.  Seated  in  that  house,  the  heirs  of  the  grandees  of 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  31 

Jie  reahi)  naturally  became  as  zealous  for  its  privileges  as  any 
of  the  humble  burgesses  with  whom  they  were  mingled.  Thus 
our  democracy  was,  from  an  early  period,  the  most  aristocratic, 
and  our  aristocracy  the  most  democratic  in  the  world — a  pe- 
culiarity which  has  lasted  down  to  the  present  day,  and  which 
has  produced  many  important  moral  and  political  effects. 

The  government  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  of  his  son,  and  of 
his  grandchildren,  was,  on  the  whole,  more  arbitrary  than  that 
of  the  Plantagenets.  Personal  character  may  in  some  3e- 
gree  explain  the  difference  ;  for  courage  and  force  of  will 
were  common  to  all  the  men  and  women  of  the  House  of 
Tudor.  They  exercised  their  power  during  a  period  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty  years,  always  with  vigor,  often  with  vio- 
lence, sometimes  with  cruelty.  They,  in  imitation  of  the 
dynasty  which  had  preceded  them,  occasionally  invaded  the 
rights  of  individuals,  occasionally  exacted  taxes  under  the  name 
of  loans  and  gifts,  occasionally  dispensed  with  penal  statutes 
and,  though  they  never  presumed  to  enact  any  permanem 
law  by  their  own  authority,  occasionally  took  upon  themselves, 
when  parliament  was  not  sitting,  to  meet  temporary  exigen- 
cies by  temporary  edicts.  It  was,  however,  impossible  for  the 
Tudors  to  carry  oppression  beyond  a  certain  point ;  for  they 
had  no  armed  force,  and  they  were  surrounded  by  an  armed 
people.  The  palace  was  guarded  by  a  few  domestics  whom 
the  array  of  a  single  shire,  or  of  a  single  ward  of  London, 
could  with  ease  have  overpowered.  These  haughty  princes 
were  therefore  under  a  restraint  stronger  than  any  which 
mere  laws  can  impose,  under  a  restraint  which  did  not,  indeed, 
prevent  them  from  sometimes  treating  an  individual  in  an  ar- 
bitrary and  even  in  a  barbarous  manner,  but  which  effectually 
secured  the  nation  against  general  and  long-continued  oppres- 
sion. They  might  safely  be  tyrants  within  the  precinct  of  the 
court,  but  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  watch  with  constant 
anxiety  the  temper  of  the  country.  Henry  the  Eighth,  for 
example,  encountered  no  opposition  when  he  wished  to  send 
Buckingham  and  Surrey,  Anne  Boleyn  and  Lady  Salisbury, 
to  the  scaffold.  But  when,  without  the  consent  of  parliament, 
he  demanded  of  his  subjects  a  contribution  amounting  to  one 
sixth  of  their  goods,  he  soon  found  it  necessary  to  retract. 
The  cry  of  hundreds  of  thousands  was,  that  they  were  Eng- 
lish and  not  French,  freemen  and  not  slaves.  In  Kent  the 
royal  commissioners  fled  for  their  lives.  In  Suffolk  four 
thousand  men  appeared  in  arms.  The  king's  lieutenants  in 


32  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

that  county  vainly  exerted  themselves  to  raise  an  army 
Those  who  did  not  join  in  the  insurrection  declared  that  they 
would  not  fight  against  their  brethren  in  such  a  quarrel. 
Henry,  proud  and  self-willed  as  he  was,  shrank,  not  without 
reason,  from  a  conflict  with  the  roused  spirit  of  the  nation. 
He  had  before  his  eyes  the  fate  of  his  predecessors  who  had 
perished  at  Berkeley  and  Pomfret.  He  not  only  cancelled  his 
jjlegal  commissions ;  he  not  only  granted  a  general  pardon 
to  all  the  malcontents  ;  but  he  publicly  and  solemnly  apolo- 
gized for  his  infraction  of  the  laws. 

His  conduct,  on  this  occasion,  well  illustrates  the  whole 
policy  of  his  house.  The  temper  of  the  princes  of  that  line 
was  hot,  and  their  spirit  high  ;  but  they  understood  the  temper 
of  the  nation  which  they  governed,  and  never  once,  like  some 
of  their  predecessors,  and  some  of  their  successors,  carried 
obstinacy  to  a  fatal  point.  The  discretion  of  the  Tudors  was 
such,  that  their  power,  though  it  was  often  resisted,  was  never 
subverted.  The  reign  of  every  one  of  them  was  disturbed  by 
formidable  discontents ;  but  the  government  never  failed  either 
to  soothe  the  mutineers,  or  to  conquer  and  punish  them.  Some- 
times, by  timely  concessions,  it  succeeded  in  averting  civil 
hostilities  ;  but  in  general  it  stood  firm,  and  called  for  help  on 
the  nation.  The  nation  obeyed  the  call,  rallied  round  the 
sovereign,  and  enabled  him  to  quell  the  disaffected  minority. 

Thus,  from  the  age  of  Henry  the  Third  to  the  age  of 
Elizabeth,  England  grew  and  flourished  under  a  polity  which 
contained  the  germ  of  our  present  institutions,  and  which, 
though  not  very  exactly  defined,  or  very  exactly  observed, 
was  yet  effectually  prevented  from  degenerating  into  des- 
potism, by  the  awe  in  which  the  governors  stood  of  the  spirit 
and  strength  of  the  governed. 

But  such  a  polity  is  suited  only  to  a  particular  stage  in  the 
progress  of  society.  The  same  causes  which  produce  a 
division  of  labor  in  the  peaceful  arts  must  at  length  make  war 
a  distinct  science  and  a  distinct  trade.  A  time  arrives  when 
the  use  of  arms  begins  to  occupy  the  entire  attention  of  a 
separate  class.  It  soon  appears  that  peasants  and  burghers, 
however  brave,  are  unable  to  stand  their  ground  against 
veteran  soldiers,  whose  whole  life  is  a  preparation  for  the  day 
of  battle,  whose  nerves  have  been  braced  by  long  familiarity 
with  danger,  and  whose  movements  have  all  the  precision  of 
clock-work.  It  is  felt  that  the  defence  of  nations  can  no 
longer  be  safely  intrusted  to  warriors  taken  from  the  plough 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  33 

or  the  loom  for  a  campaign  of  forty  days.  If  any  state  forms 
a  great  regular  army,  the  bordering  states  must  imitate  the 
example,  or  must  submit  to  a  foreign  yoke.  But,  where  a 
great  regular  army  exists,  limited  monarchy,  such  as  it  was 
in  the  middle  ages,  can  exist  no  longer.  The  sovereign  is  at 
once  emancipated  from  what  had  been  the  chief  restraint  on 
his  power  ;  and  he  inevitably  becomes  absolute,  unless  he  is 
subjected  to  checks  such  as  would  be  superfluous  in  a  society 
where  all  are  soldiers  occasionally,  and  none  permanently* 

With  the  danger  came  also  the  means  of  escape.  In  the 
monarchies  of  the  middle  ages  the  power  of  the  sword  be- 
longed to  the  prince,  but  the  power  of  the  purse  belonged  to 
the  nation ;  and  the  progress  of  civilization,  as  it  made  the 
sword  of 'the  prince  more  and  more  formidable  to  the  nation, 
made  the  purse  of  the  nation  more  and  more  necessary  to  the 
prince.  His  hereditary  revenues  would  no  longer  suffice, 
even  for  the  expenses  of  civil  government.  It  was  utterly 
impossible  that,  without  a  regular  and  extensive  system  of 
taxation,  he  could  keep  in  constant  efficiency  a  great  body  of 
disciplined  troops.  The  policy  which  the  parliamentary  as- 
semblies of  Europe  ought  to  have  adopted  was,  to  take  their 
stand  firmly  on  their  constitutional  right  to  give  or  withhold 
money,  and  resolutely  to  refuse  funds  for  the  support  of 
armies,  till  ample  securities  had  been  provided  against  des- 
potism. 

This  wise  policy  was  followed  in  our  country  alone.  In 
the  neighboring  kingdoms  great  military  establishments  were 
formed  ;  no  new  safeguards  for  public  liberty  were  devised  ; 
and  the  consequence  was,  that  the  old  parliamentary  institu- 
tions every  where  ceased  to  exist.  In  France,  where  they  had 
always  been  feeble,  they  languished,  and  at  length  died  of  mere 
weakness.  In  Spain,  where  they  had  been  as  strong  as  in 
any  part  of  Europe,  they  struggled  fiercely  for  life,  but  strug- 
gled too  late.  The  mechanics  of  Toledo  and  Valladolid 
vainly  defended  the  privileges  of  the  Castilian  Cortes  against 
the  veteran  battalions  of  Charles  the  Fifth.  As  vainly,  in 
the  next  generation,  did  the  citizens  of  Saragossa  stand  up 
against  Philip  the  Second,  for  the  old  constitution  of  Aragon. 
One  after  another  the  great  national  councils  of  the  continen- 
tal monarchies,  councils  once  scarcely  less  proud  and  power- 
ful than  those  which  sate  at  Westminster,  sank  into  utter 
insignificance.  If  they  met,  they  met  merely  as  our  con 
voca'  ion  now  meets,  to  go  through  some  venerable  form. 

3* 


34  ^     HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

In  England  events  took  a  different  course.  This  singulai 
^felicity  she  owed  chiefly  to  her  insular  situation.  Before  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century  great  military  establishments  were 
indispensable  to  the  dignity,  and  even  to  the  safety,  of  the 
French  and  Spanish  monarchies.  If  either  of  those  two  pow- 
ers had  disarmed,  it  would  soon  have  been  compelled  to 
submit  to  the  dictation  of  the  other.  But  England,  protected 
by  the  sea  against  invasion,  and  rarely  engaged  in  warlike 
operations  on  the  Continent,  was  not,  as  yet,  under  the  neces- 
sity of  employing  regular  troops.  The  sixteenth  century,  the 
seventeenth  century,  found  her  still  without  a  standing  army. 
At  the  commencement  of  the  seventeenth  century  political 
science  had  made  considerable  progress.  The  fate  of  the 
Spanish  Cortes  and  of  the  French  States  General,  had  given 
solemn  warning  to  our  parliaments ;  and  our  parliaments, 
fully  aware  of  the  nature  and  magnitude  of  the  danger, 
adopted,  in  good  time,  a  system  of  tactics  which,  after  a 
contest  protracted  through  three  generations,  was  at  length 
successful. 

Almost  every  writer  who  has  treated  of  that  contest  has 
been  desirous  to  sh6w  that  his  own  party  was  the  party  which 
was  struggling  to  preserve  the  old  constitution  unaltered.  The 
truth,  however,  is,  that  the  old  constitution  could  not  be  pre- 
served unaltered.  A  law,  beyond  the  control  of  human 
wisdom,  had  decreed  that  there  should  no  longer  be  govern- 
ments of  that  peculiar  class  which,  in  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries,  had  been  common  throughout  Europe. 
The  question,  therefore,  was,  not  whether  our  polity  should 
undergo  a  change,  but  what  the  nature  of  the  change 
should  be.  The  introduction  of  a  new  and  mighty  force  had 
disturbed  the  old  equilibrium,  and  had  turned  one  limited 
monarchy  after  another  into  an  absolute  monarchy.  What 
had  happened  elsewhere  would  assuredly  have  happened  here, 
unless  the  balance  had  been  redressed  by  a  great  transfer  of 
power  from  the  crown  to  the  parliament.  Our  princes  were 
about  to  have  at  their  command  means  of  coercion  such  as 
no  Plantagenet  or  Tudor  had  ever  possessed.  They  must 
inevitably  have  become  despots,  unless  they  had  been,  at  the 
same  time,  placed  under  restraints  to  which  no  Plantagenet  or 
Tudor  had  ever  been  subject. 

It  seems  certain,  therefore,  that,  had  none  but  politica1 
causes  been  at  work,  the  seventeenth  century  would  not  lave 
passed  away  without  a  fierce  conflict  between  our  kings  anJ 


HISTORY    OB'    ENGLAND.  35 

iheir  parliaments.  But  other  causes  of  perhaps  greater  po- 
tency contributed  to  produce  the  same  effect.  While  the 
government  of  the  Tudors  was  in  its  highest  vigor  took  place 
an  event  which  has  colored  the  destinies  of  all  Christian 
nations,  and  in  an  especial  manner  the  destinies  of  England. 
Twice  during  the  middle  ages  the  mind  of  Europe  had  risen 
up  against  the  domination  of  Rome.  The  first  insurrection 
broke  out  in  the  south  of  France.  The  energy  of  Innocent 
the  Third,  the  zeal  of  the  young  orders  of  Francis  and  Dom- 
inic, and  the  ferocity  of  the  Crusaders  whom  the  priesthood 
let  loose  on  an  unwarlike  population,  crushed  the  Albigensian 
churches.  The  second  reformation  had  its  origin  in  England 
and  spread  to  Bohemia.  The  Council  of  Constance,  by 
removing  some  ecclesiastical  disorders  which  had  given 
scandal  to  Christendom,  and  the  princes  of  Europe,  by  un- 
sparingly using  fire  and  sword  against  the  heretics,  succeeded 
in  arresting  and  turning  back  the  movement.  Nor  is  this 
much  to  be  regretted.  The  sympathies  of  a  Protestant,  it  is 
•  true,  will  naturally  be  on  the* side  of  the  Albigensians  and  of 
the  Lollards.  Yet  an  enlightened  and  temperate  Protestant 
will  perhaps  be  disposed  to  doubt  whether  the  success,  either 
of  the  Albigensians  or  of  the  Lollards,  would,  on  the  whole, 
have  promoted  the  happiness  and  virtue  of  mankind.  Corrupt 
as  the  Church  of  Rome  was,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that, 
if  that  church  had  been  overthrown  in  the  twelfth  or  even  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  the  vacant  space  would  have  been 
occupied  by  some  system  more  corrupt  still.  There  was 
then,  through  the  greater  part  of  Europe,  very  little  knowl- 
edge, and  that  little  was  confined  to  the  clergy.  Not  one  man 
in  five  hundred  could  have  spelled"  his  way  through  a  psalm. 
Books  were  few  and  costly.  The  art  of  printing  was  un- 
known. Copies  of  the  Bible,  inferior  in  beauty  and  clearness 
to  those  which  every  cottager  may  now  command,  sold  for 
prices  which  many  priests  could  not  afford  to  give.  It  was 
obviously  impossible  that  the  laity  should  search  the  Scriptures 
for  themselves.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that,  as  soon  as 
they  had  put  off  one  spiritual  yoke,  they  would  have  put  on 
another,  and  that  the  power  lately  exercised  by  the  clergy  of 
tlie  Church  of  Rome  would  have  passed  to  a  far  worse  class 
of  teachers.  The  sixteenth  century  was  comparatively  a 
time  of  light.  Yet  even  in  the  sixteenth  century  a  consider- 
able number  of  those  who  quitted  the  old  religion  followed 
vhe  first  confident  and  plausible  guide  who  offered  himself, 


36  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

and  were  soon  led  into  errors  far  more  serious  than  thoso 
which  they  had  renounced.  Thus  Matthias  and  Kniperdoling, 
apostles  of  lust,  robbery,  and  murder,  were  able  for  a  time  to 
rule  great  cities.  In  a  darker  age,  such  false  prophets  might 
have  founded  empires  ;  and  Christianity  might  have  been 
distorted  into  a  cruel  and  licentious  superstition,  more  noxious, 
not  only  than  Popery,  but  even  than  Islamism. 

About  a  hundred  years  after  the  rising  of  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, that  great  change  emphatically  called  the  Reformation 
began.  The  fulness  of  time  was  now  come.  The  clergy 
were  no  longer  the  sole  or  the  chief  depositaries  of  knowl- 
edge. The  invention  of  printing  had  furnished  the  assailants 
of  the  church  with  a  mighty  weapon  which  had  been  wanting 
to  their  predecessors.  The  study  of  the  ancient  writers,  the 
rapid  development  of  the  powers  of  the  modern  languages, 
the  unprecedented  activity  which  was  displayed  in  every 
department  of  literature,  the  political  state  of  Europe,  the 
vices  of  the  Roman  court,  the(  exactions  of  the  Roman  chan- 
cery, the  jealousy  with  which  the  wealth  and  privileges  of  the 
clergy  were  naturally  regarded  by  laymen,  the  jealousy  with 
which  the  Italian  ascendency  was  naturally  regarded  by  men 
born  on  our  side  of  the  Alps, — all  these  things  gave  to  the 
teachers  of  the  new  theology  an  advantage  which  they  per- 
fectly understood  how  to  use. 

Those  who  hold  that  the  influence  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
in  the  dark  ages  was,  on  the  whole,  beneficial  to  mankind, 
may  yet  with  perfect  consistency  regard  the  Reformation  as 
an  inestimable  blessing.  The  leading-strings,  which  preserve 
and  uphold  the  infant,  would  impede  the  full-grown  man. 
And  so  the  very  means  by  which  the  human  mind  is,  in 
one  stage  of  its  progress,  supported  and  propelled,  may,  in 
another  stage,  be  mere  hinderances.  There  is  a  point  in  the 
life  both  of  an  individual  and  of  a  society,  at  which  submis- 
sion and  faith,  such  as  at  a  later  period  would  be  justly  called 
servility  and  credulity,  are  useful  qualities.  The  child  who 
teachably  and  undoubtingly  listens  to  the  instructions  of  his 
elders  is  likely  to  improve  rapidly.  But  the  man  who  should 
receive  with  childlike  docility  every  assertion  and  dogma 
uttered  by  another  man  no  wiser  than  himself  would  become 
contemptible.  It  is  the  same  with  communities.  The  child- 
hood of  the  European  nations  was  passed  under  the  tutelage 
of  the  clergy.  The  ascendency  of  the  sacerdotal  order  was 
>ng  the  ascendency  which  naturally  and  properly  belongs  to 


"HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  37 

intellectual  superiority.  The  priests,  with  all  their  faults, 
were  by  far  the  wisest  portion  of  society.  It  was,  therefore, 
on  the  whole,  good  that  they  ihould  be  respected  and  obeyed. 
The  encroachments  of  the  ecclesiastical  power  on  the  province 
of  the  civil  power  produced  much  more  happiness  than  mis- 
ery, while  the  ecclesiastical  power  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
only  class  that  had  studied  history,  philosophy,  and  public 
law,  and  while  the  civil  power  was  in  the  hands  of  savage  chiefs, 
who  could  not  read  their  own  grants  and  edicts.  But  a  change 
took  place.  Knowledge  gradually  spread  among  laymen. 
At  the  commencement  of  the  sixteenth  century  many  of  them 
were  in  every  intellectual  attainment  fully  equal  to  the  most 
enlightened  of  their  spiritual  pastors.  Thenceforward  that 
dominion  which,  during  the  dark  ages,  had  been,  in  spite  of 
many  abuses,  a  legitimate  and  a  salutary  guardianship,  became 
an  unjust  and  noxious  tyranny. 

From  the  time  when  the  barbarians  overran  the  Western 
Empire  to  the  time  of  the  revival  of  letters,  the  influence  of 
the  Church  of  Rome  had  been  generally  favorable  to  science, 
to  civilization,  and  to  good  government.  But,  during  the  last 
three  centuries,  to  stunt  the  growth  of  the  human  mind  has 
been  her  chief  object.  'Throughout  Christendom,  whatever 
advance  has  been  made  in  knowledge,  in  freedom,  in  wealth, 
and  in  the  arts  of  life,  has  been  made  in  spite  of  her,  and  has 
every  where  been  in  inverse  proportion  to  her  power.  The 
loveliest  and  most  fertile  provinces  of  Europe  have,  under  her 
rule,  been  sunk  in  poverty,  in  political  servitude,  and  in  intel- 
lectual torpor,  while  Protestant  countries,  once  proverbial  for 
sterility  and  barbarism,  have  been  turned,  by  skill  and  indus- 
try, into  gardens,  and  can  boast  of  a  long  list  of  heroes  and 
statesmen,  philosophers  and  poets.  Whoever,  knowing  what 
Italy  and  Scotland  naturally  are,  and  what,  four  hundred  years 
ago,  they  actually  were,  shall  now  compare  the  country  round 
Rome  with  the  country  round  Edinburgh,  will  be  able  to  form 
some  judgment  as  to  the  tendency  of  Papal  domination.  The 
descent  of  Spain,  once  the  first  among  monarchies,  to  the  low- 
est depths  of  degradation,  the  elevation  of  Holland,  in  spite  of 
many  natural  disadvantages,  to  a  position  such  as  no  cominon- 
•vealth  so  small  has  ever  reached,  teach  the  same  lesson. 
Whoever  passes,  in  Germany,  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a 
Protestant  principality,  in  Switzerland  from  a  Roman  Catholic 
lo  a  Protestant  canton,  in  Ireland  from  a  Roman  Catholic  to  a 
Protestant  county,  finds  that  he  has  passed  from  a  lower  to  a 
VOL.  i.  4 


38  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

higher  grade  of  civilization.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Atlan- 
tic the  same  law  prevails.  The  Protestants  of  the  United 
States  have  left  far  behind  them  the  Roman  Catholics  of 
Mexico,  Peru,  and  Brazil.  The  Roman  Catholics  of  Lower 
Canada  remain  inert,  while  the  whole  continent  round  them  is 
in  a  ferment  with  Protestant  activity  and  enterprise.  The 
French  have  doubtless  shown  an  energy  and  an  intelligence 
which,  even  when  misdirected,  have  justly  entitled  them  to  be 
called  a  great  people.  But  this  apparent  exception,  when 
examined,  will  be  found  to  confirm  the  rule  ;  for  in  no  coun 
try  that  is  called  Roman  Catholic  has  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  during  several  generations,  possessed  so  little  author- 
ity as  in  France. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  England  owes  more  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion  or  to  the  Reformation.  For  the  amalgama- 
tion of  races  and  for  the  abolition  of  villenage,  she  is  chiefly 
indebted  to  the  influence  which  the  priesthood  in  the  middle 
ages  exercised  over  the  laity.  For  political  and  intellectual 
freedom,  and  for  all  the  blessings  which  political  and  intellec- 
tual freedom  have  brought  in  their  train,  she  is  chiefly  indebted 
to  the  great  rebellion  of  the  laity  against  the  priesthood. 

The  struggle  between  the  old  and  the  new  theology  in  our 
country  was  long,  and  the  event  sometimes  seemed  doubtful. 
.  There  were  two  extreme  parties,  prepared  to  act  with  violence 
or  to  suffer  with  stubborn  resolution.  Between  them  lay, 
during  a  considerable  time,  a  middle  party,  which  blended, 
very  illogically,  but  by  no  means  unnaturally,  lessons  learned 
in  the  nursery  with  the  sermons  of  the  modern  evangelists, 
and,  while  clinging  with  fondness  to  old  observances,  yet 
detested  abuses  with  which  those  observances  were  closely 
connected.  Men,  in  such  a  frame  of  mind,  were  willing  to 
obey,  almost  with  thankfulness,  the  directions  of  an  able  ruler 
who  spared  them  the  trouble  of  judging  for  themselves,  and, 
raising  a  firm  and  commanding  voice  above  the  uproar  of 
controversy,  told  them  how  to  worship  and  what  to  believe. 
It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  the  Tudors  should  have  been 
able  to  exercise  a  great  influence  on  ecclesiastical  affairs 
nor  is  it  strange  that  their  influence  should,  for  the  most  part, 
have  been  exercised  with  a  view  tolheir  own  interest. 

Henry  the  Eighth  attempted  to  constitute  an  Anglican 
Church,  differing  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  on  the 
point  of  the  supremacy,  and  on  that  point  alone.  His  success 
in  this  attempt  was  extraordinary.  The  force  of  his  charac- 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  39 

er,  the  singularly  favorable  situation  in  which  he  stood  with 
respect  to  foreign  powers,  the  immense  wealth  which  the 
spoliation  of  the  abbeys  placed  at  his  disposal,  and  the  support 
of  that  class  which  still  halted  between  two  opinions,  enabled 
him  to  bid  defiance  to  both  the  extreme  parties,  to  burn  as 
heretics  those  who  avowed  the  tenets  of  Luther,  and  to  hang 
as  traitors  those  who  owned  the  authority  of  the  Pope.  But  • 
Henry's  system  died  with  him.  Had  his  life  been  prolonged, 
he  would  have  found  it  difficult  to  maintain  a  position  assailed 
with  equal  fury  by  all  who  were  zealous  either  for  the  new  or 
for  the  old  opinions.  The  ministers  who  held  the  royal  pre- 
rogatives in  trust  for  his  infant  son  could  not  venture  to  per- 
sist in  so  hazardous  a  policy ;  nor  could  Elizabeth  venture  to 
return  to  it.  It  was  necessary  to  make  a  choice.  The  gov- 
ernment must  either  submit  to  E,ome,xor  must  obtain  the  aid 
of  the  Protestants.  The  government  and  the  Protestants  had 
only  one  thing  in*  common — hatred  of  the  Papal  power.  The 
English  reformers  were  eager  to  go  as  far  as  their  brethren  on 
the  Continent.  They  unanimously  condemned  as  anti-Chris- 
tian numerous  dogmas  and  practices  to  which  Henry  had 
stubbornly  adhered,  and  which  Elizabeth  reluctantly  aban- 
doned. Many  felt  a  strong  repugnance  even  to  things  indiffer- 
ent, which  had  formed  part  of  the  polity  or  ritual  of  the  mystical 
Babylon.  Thus  Bishop  Hooper,  who  died  manfully  at 
Gloucester  for  his  religion,  long  refused  to  wear  the  episcopal 
vestments.  Bishop  Ridley,  a  martyr  of  still  greater  renown, 
pulled  down  the  ancient  altars  of  his  diocese,  and  ordered 
the  Eucharist  to  be  administered  in  the  middle  of  churches, 
at  tables  which  the  Papists  irreverently  termed  oyster-boards. 
Bishop  Jewel  pronounced  the  clerical  garb  to  be  a  stage 
dress,  a  fool's  coat,  a  relic  of  the  Amorites,  and  promised 
that  he  would  spare  no  labor  to  extirpate  such  degrading  ab- 
surdities. Archbishop  Grindal  long  hesitated  about  accepting 
a  mitre,  from  dislike  of  what  he  regarded  as  the  mummery  of 
consecration.  Bishop  Parkhurst  uttered  a  fervent  prayer  that 
the  Church  of  England  would  propose  to  herself  the  Church 
of  Zurich  as  the  absolute  pattern  of  a  Christian  community. 
Bishop  Ponet  was  of  opinion  that  the  word  bishop  should  be 
abandoned  to  the  Papists,  and  that  the  chief  officei's  of  the 
purified  church  should  be  called  superintendents.  When  it 
is  considered  that  none  of  these  prelates  belonged  to  tho 
extreme  section  of  the  Protestant  party,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
at,  if  the  general  sense  of  that  party  had  been  followed,  the 


40  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

work  of  reform  would  have  been  carried  on  as  unsparingly  in 
England  as  in  Scotland.  .  J 

But,  as  the.  government  needed  the  support  of  the  Protes- 
tants, so  the  Protestants  needed  the  protection  of  the  govern- 
ment. Much  was  therefore  given  up  on  both  sides;  a  union 
was  effected  ;  and  the  fruit  of  that  union  was  the  Church  of 
England.  "+• 

To  the  peculiarities  of  this  great  institution,  and  to  the  strong 
passions  which  it  has  called  forth  in  the  minds  both  of  friends 
and  of  enemies,  are  to  be  attributed' many  of  the  most  impor- 
tant events  which  have,  since  the  Reformation,  taken  place 
in  our  country ;  nor  can  the  secular  history  of  England  be  at 
all  understood  by  us,  unless  we  study  it  in  constant  connection 
with  the  history  of  her  ecclesiastical  polity. 

The  man  who  took  the  chief  part  in  settling  the  conditions 
of  the  alliance  which  produced  the  Anglican  Church  was 
Thomas  Cranmer.  He  was  the  representative  of  both  the 
parties,  which,  at  that  time,  needed  each  other's  assistance. 
He  was  at  once  a  divine  and  a  statesman.  In  his  character 
of  divine  he  was  perfectly  ready  to  go  as  far  in  the  way  of 
change  as  any  Swiss  or  Scottish  reformer.  In  his  character 
of  statesman,  he  was  desirous  to  preserve  that  organization 
which  had,  during  many  ages,  admirably  served  the  purposes 
of  the  bishops  of  Rome,  and  might  be  expected  now  to  serve 
equally  well  the  purposes  of  the  English  kings  and  of  their 
ministers.  His  temper  and  his  understanding  eminently  fitted 
him  to  act  as  mediator.  Saintly  in  his  professions,  unscrupu- 
lous in  his  dealings,  zealous  for  nothing,  bold  in  speculation, 
a  coward  and  a  time-server  in  action,  a  placable  enemy  and  a 
lukewarm  friend,  he  was  in  every  way  qualified  to  arrange 
the  terms  of  the  coalition  between  the  religious  and  the  worldly 
enemies  of  Popery. 

To  this  day  the  constitution,  the  doctrines,  and  the  services 
of  the  Church  retain  the  visible  marks  of  the  compromise  from 
which  she  sprang.  She  occupies  a. middle  position  between 
the  churches  of  Rome  and  Geneva.  Her  doctrinal  confessions 
and  discourses,  composed  by  Protestants,  set  forth  principles 
of  theology  in  which  Calvin  or  Knox  would  have  found 
scarcely  a  word  to  disapprove.  Her  prayers  and  thanksgivings, 
derived  from  the  ancient  liturgies,  are  very  generally  such 
lhat  Bishop  Fisher  or  Cardinal  Pole  might  have  heartily  joined 
in  them.  A  controversialist  who  puts  an  Anninian  sense 
on  her  articles  and  homilies  will  be  pronounced  by  candid 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  41 

men  to  be  as  unreasonable  as  a  controversialist  who  denies 
that  the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration  can  be  discovered 
in  her  liturgy. 

The  Church  of  Rome  held  that  episcopacy  was  of  divine 
institution,  and  that  certain  supernatural  graces  of  a  high  or- 
der had  been  transmitted  by  the  imposition  of  hands  through 
fifty  generations,  from  the  eleven  who  received  their  commis- 
sion on  the  Galilean  mount,  to  the  bishops  who  met  at  Trent. 
A  large  body  of  Protestants,  on  the  other  hand,  regarded  prel- 
acy as  positively  unlawful,  and  persuaded  themselves  that 
they  found  a  very  different  form  of  ecclesiastical  government 
prescribed  in  Scripture.  The  founders  of  the  Anglican 
Church  took  a  middle  course.  They  retained  episcopacy  ; 
^but  they  did  not  declare  it  to  be  an  institution  essential  to  the 
welfare  of  a  Christian  society,  or  to  the  efficacy  of  the  sacra- 
ments. Cranmer,  indeed,  plainly  avowed  his  conviction  that, 
in  the  primitive  times,  there  was  no  distinction  between  bish- 
ops and  priests,  and  that  the  laying  on  of  hands  was  altogether 
unnecessary. 

Among  the  Presbyterians,  the  conduct  of  public  worship  is, 
to  a  great  extent,  left  to  the  minister.  Their  prayers,  there- 
fore, are  not  exactly  the  same  in  any  two  assemblies  on  the 
same  day,  or  on  any  two  days  in  the  same  assembly.  In  one 
parish  they  are  fervent,  eloquent,  and  full  of  meaning.  In  the 
next  parish  they  may  be  languid  or  absurd.  The  priests  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  have,  during 
many  generations,  daily  chanted  the  same  ancient  confes- 
sions, supplications,  and  thanksgivings,  in  India  and  Lithuania, 
in  Ireland  and  Peru.  The  service,  being  in  a  dead  language, 
is  intelligible  only  to  the  learned  ;  and  the  great  majority  of 
the  congregation  may  be  said  to  assist  as  spectators  rather 
than  as  auditors.  Here,  again,  the  Church  of  England  took 
a  middle  course.  She  copied  the  Roman  Catholic  forms  of 
prayer,  but  translated  them  into  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  invited 
the  illiterate  multitude  to  join  its  voice  to  that  of  the  min- 
ister. 

In  every  part  of  her  system  the  same  policy  may  be  traced. 
Utterly  rejecting  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  and  con- 
demning as  idolatrous  all  adoration  paid  to  the  sacramental 
bread  and  wine,  she  yet,  to  the  disgust  of  the  Puritan,  required 
her  children  to  receive  the  memorials  of  divine  love,  meekly 
kneeling  upon  their  knees.  Discarding  many  rich  vestments 
which  surrounded  the  altars  of  the  ancient  faith,  she  vet 
4*v 


42  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

retained,  to  the  horror  of  weak  minds,  the  robe  of  white  linen, 
which  typified  the  purity  which  belonged  to  her  as  the  mysti- 
cal spouse  of  Christ.  Discarding  a  crowd  of  pantomimic  ges- 
tures, which,  in  the  Roman  Catholic  worship,  are  substituted 
for  intelligible  words,  she  yet  shocked  many  rigid  Protestants 
by  marking  the  infant  just  sprinkled  from  the  font  with  the 
sign  of  the  cross.  The  Roman  Catholic  addressed  his  prayers 
to  a  multitude  of  saints,  among  whom  were  numbered  many 
men  of  doubtful,  and  some  of  hateful,  character.  The  Puritan 
refused  the  addition  of  saint  even  to  the  apostle  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, and  to  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved.  The  Church  of 
England,  though  she  asked  for  the  intercession  of  no  created 
being,  still  set  apart  days  for  the  commemoration  of  some  who 
had  done  and  suffered  great  things  for  the  faith.  She  retained 
confirmation  and  ordination  as  edifying  rites,  but  she  degraded 
them  from  the  rank  of  sacraments.  Shrift  was  no  part  of  her 
system.  Yet  she  gently  invited  the  dying  penitent  to  confess 
his  sins  to  a  divine,  and  empowered  her  ministers  to  soothe 
the  departing  soul  by  an  absolution,  which  breathes  the  very 
spirit  of  the  old  religion.  In  general  it  may  be  said,  that  she 
appeals  more  to  the  understanding,  and  less  to  the  lenses  and 
the  imagination,  than  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  that  she  ap- 
peals less  to  the  understanding,  and  more  to  the  senses  and 
imagination,  than  the  Protestant  Churches  of  Scotland,  France, 
and  Switzerland. 

Nothing,  however,  so  strongly  distinguished  the  Church  of 
England  from  other  churches,  as  the  relation  in  which  she 
stood  to  the  monarchy.  The  king  was  her  head.  The  limits 
of  the  authority  which  he  possessed,  as  such,  were'  not  traced, 
and  indeed  have  never  yet  been  traced,  with  precision.  The 
laws  which  declared  him  supreme  in  ecclesiastical  matters 
were  drawn  rudely  and  in  general  terms.  If,  for  the  purpose 
of  ascertaining  the  sense  of  those  laws,  we  examine  the  books 
and  lives  of  those  who  founded  the  English  Church,  our  per- 
plexity will  be  increased.  For  the  founders  of  the  English 
Church  wrote  and  acted  in  an  age  of  violent  intellectual  fer- 
mentation, and  of  constant  action  and  reaction.  They  there- 
fore often  contradicted  each  other,  and  sometimes  contradicted 
themselves.  That  the  king  was,  under  Christ,  sole  head  of 
the  Church,  was  a  doctrine  which  they  all  with  one  voice  af- 
firmed ;  but  those  words  had  *very  different  significations  io 
different  mouths,  and  in  the  same  mouth  at  different  conjunc- 
t»res.  Sometimes  an  authority  which  would  have  satisfied 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  43 

Hildebrand  was  ascribed  to  the  sovereign ;  then  it  dwindled 
down  to  an  authority  little  more  than  that  which  had  been 
claimed  by  many  ancient  English  princes,  who  had  been  in 
constant  communion  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  What  Henry 
and  his  favorite  counsellors  meant  by  the  supremacy,  was  cer 
tainly  nothing  less  than  the  whole  power  of  the  keys.  The 
king  was  to  be  the  pope  of  his  kingdom,  the  vicar  of  God,  tho 
expositor  of  Catholic  verity,  the  channel  of  sacramental  graces 
He  arrogated  to  himself  the  right  of  deciding  dogmatically 
what  was  orthodox  doctrine  and  what  was  heresy,  of  drawing 
up  and  imposing  confessions  of  faith,  and  of  giving  religious 
instruction  to  his  people.  He  proclaimed  that  all  jurisdiction, 
spiritual  as  well  as  temporal,  was  derived  from  him  alone,  and 
that  it  was  in  his  power  to  confer  the  episcopal  character,  and 
to  take  it  away.  He  actually  ordered  his  seal  to  be  put  to 
commissions  by  which  bishops  were  appointed,  who  were  to 
exercise  their  functions  during  his  royal  pleasure.  According 
to  this  system,  as  expounded  by  Cranmer,  the  king  was  the 
spiritual  as  well  as  the  temporal  chief  of  the  nation.  In  both 
capacities  his  highness  must  have  lieutenants.  As  he  appoint- 
ed civil  officers  to  keep  his  seal,  to  collect  his  revenues,  and 
to  dispense  justice  in  his  name,  so  he  appointed  divines  of  va- 
rious ranks  to  preach  the  gospel,  and  to  administer  the  sacra- 
ments. It  was  unnecessary  that  there  should  be  any  imposition 
of  hands.  The  king  —  such  was  the  opinion  of  Cranmer 
given  in  the  plainest  words — might,  in  virtue  of  authority  de- 
rived from  God,  make  a  priest ;  and  the  priest  so  made  need- 
ed no  ordination  whatever.  These  opinions  Cranmer  followed 
out  to  their  legitimate  consequences.  He  held  that  his  own 
spiritual  functions,  like  the  secular  functions  of  the  chancellor 
and  treasurer,  were  at  once  determined  by  a  demise  of  the 
crown.  When  Henry  died,  therefore,  the  archbishop  and  his 
suffragans  took  out  fresh  commissions,  empowering  them  to 
ordain  and  to  perform  other  spiritual  functions  till  the  new 
sovereign  should  think  fit  to  order  otherwise.  When  it  was 
objected  that  a  power  to  bind  and  to  loose,  altogether  distinct 
from  temporal  power,  had  been  given  by  our  Lord  to  his  apos- 
tles, the  theologians  of  this  school  replied  that  the  power  to 
bind  and  to  loose  had  descended,  not  to  the  clergy,  but  to  the 
whole  body  of  Christian  men,  and  ought  to  he  exercised  by 
the  chief  magistrate,  as  the  representative  of  the  society. 
When  it  was  objected  that  Saint  Paul  had  spoken  of  certain 
persons  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  had  made  overseers  and  shep- 


44  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

herds  cf  the  faithful,  it  was  answered  that  King  Henry  was 
the  very  overseer,  the  veiy  shepherd,  whom  the  Holy  Ghost 
had  appointed,  and  to  whom  the  expressions  of  Saint  Pau. 
applied.* 

These  high  pretensions  gave  scandal  to  Protestants  as  well  as 
to  Catholics;  and  the  scandal  was  greatly  increased  when  the 
supremacy,  which  Mary  had  resigned  back  to  the  Pope,  was 
again  annexed  to  the  crown,  on  the  accession  of  Elizabeth. 
It  seemed  monstrous  that  a  woman  should  be  the  chief  bishop 
of  a  church  in  which  an  apostle  had  forbidden  her  even  to 
let  her  voice  be  heard.  The  queen,  therefore,  found  it 
necessary  expressly  to  disclaim  that  sacerdotal  character 
which  her  father  had  assumed,  and  which,  according  to 
Cranmer,  had  been  inseparably  joined,  by  divine  ordinance, 
to  the  regal  function.  When  the  Anglican  confession  of  faith 
was  revised  in  her  reign,  the  supremacy  was  explained  in  a 
manner  somewhat  different  from  that  which  had  been  fash- 
ionable at  the  court  of  Henry.  Cranmer  had  declared,  in  em- 
phatic terms,  that  God  had  immediately  committed  to  Christian 
princes  the  whole  cure  of  all  their  subjects,  as  well  concerning 
the  administration  of  God's  word  for  the  cure  of  souls,  as 
concerning  the  ministration  of  things  political. t  The  thirty- 
seventh  article  of  religion,  framed  under  Elizabeth,  declares, 
in  terms  as  emphatic,  that  the  ministering  of  God's  word  does 
not  belong  to  princes.  The  queen,  however,  still  had  over 
the  church  a  visitatorial  power  of  vast  and  undefined  extent. 
She  was  intrusted  by  parliament  with  the  office  of  restraining 
and  punishing  heresy  and  every  sort  of  ecclesiastical  abuse, 
and  was  permitted  to  delegate  her  authority  to  commissioners. 
The  bishops  were  little  more  than  her  ministers.  Rather  than 
grant  to  the  civil  magistrate  the  absolute  power  of  nominating 
spiritual  pastors,  the  Church  of  Rome,  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, set  all  Europe  on  fire.  Rather  than  grant  to  the  civil 
magistrate  the  absolute  power  of  nominating  spiritual  pastors, 
the  ministers  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  in  our  own  time,  re- 
signed their  livings  by  hundreds.  The  Church  of  England 
had  no  such  scruples.  By  the  royaLauthority  alone  her  prel- 
ates were  appointed.  By  the  royal  authority  alone  her  con- 


*  See  a  very  curious  paper  which  Strype  believed  tc  be  in  Gar- 
diner's handwriting.  Ecclesiastical  Memorials,  Book  I.  Chap  jcvii. 

t  These  are  Cranmer's  own  words.  See  the  Appendix  to  Uurop.i.'j 
History  of  the  Reformation,  Part  I.  Book  III.  No.  21,  Question  9. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  45 

vocations  were  summoned,  regulated,  prorogued,  and  dissolved. 
Without  the  royal  sanction  her  canons  had  no  force.  One  of 
the  articles  of  her  faith  was,  that  without  the  royal  consent  no 
ecclesiastical  council  could  lawfully  assemble.  From  all  her 
judicatures  an  appeal  lay,  in  the  last  resort,  to  the  sovereign, 
even  when  the  question  was,  whether  an  opinion  ought  to  be 
accounted  heretical,  or  whether  the  administration  of  a  sacra- 
ment had  been  valid.  Nor  did  the  Church  grudge  this  exten- 
sive power  to  our  princes.  By  them  she  had  been  called  into 
existence,  nursed  through  a  feeble  infancy,  guarded  from 
Papists  on  one  side,  and  from  Puritans  on  the  other,  protected 
against  parliaments  which  bore  her  no  good  will,  and  avenged 
on  literary  assailants  whom  she  found  it  hard  to  answer. 
Thus  gratitude,  hope,  fear,  common  attachments,  common 
enmities,  bound  her  to  the  throne.  All  her  traditions,  all  her 
tastes  were  monarchical.  Loyalty  became  a  point  of  pro- 
fessional honor  among  her  clergy,  the  peculiar  badge  which 
distinguished  them  at  once  from  Calvinists  and  from  Papists. 
Both  the  Calvinists  and  the  Papists,  widely  as  they  differed  in 
other  respects,  regarded  with  extreme  jealousy  all  encroach- 
ments of  the  temporal  power  on  the  domain  of  the  spiritual 
power.  Both  Calvinists  and  Papists  maintained  that  subjects 
might  justifiably  draw  the  sword  against  ungodly  rulers.  In 
France,  Calvinists  resisted  Charles  the  Ninth  ;  Papists  resisted 
Henry  the  Fourth  :  both  Papists  and  Calvinists  resisted  Henry 
the  Third.  In  Scotland,  Calvinists  led  Mary  captive.  On  the 
north  of  the  Trent,  Papists  took  arms  against  Elizabeth. 
The  Church  of  England,  meanwhile,  condemned  both  Cal- 
vinists and  Papists,  and  loudly  boasted  that  no  duty  was  more 
constantly  or  earnestly  inculcated  by  her  than  that  of  submis- 
sion to  princes. 

The  advantages  which  the  crown  derived  from  this  close 
alliance  with  the  Established  Church  were  great;  but  they 
were  not  without  serious  drawbacks.  The  compromise  ar- 
ranged by  Cranmer  had  from  the  first  been  considered  by  a 
large  body  of  Protestants  as  a  scheme  for  serving  two  masters, 
as  an  attempt  to  unite  the  worship  of  the  Lord  with  the  wor- 
ship of  Baal.  In  the  days  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  the  scruples 
of  this  party  had  repeatedly  thrown  great  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  the  government.  When  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne, 
these  difficulties  were  much  increased.  Violence  naturally 
engenders  violence.  The  spirit  of  Protestantism  was  there- 
fore far  fiercer  and  more  intolerant  after  the  cruelties  of  Mary 


46  HISTORY    OJT    ENGLAND. 

than  before  them.  Many  persons  who  were  warmly  attache  1 
to  the  new  opinions  had,  during  the  evil  days,  taken  refuge  in 
Switzerland  and  Germany.  They  had  been  hospitably  re- 
ceived by  their  brethren  in  the  faith,  had  sate  at  the  feet  of 
the  great  doctors  of  Strasburg,  Zurich,  and  Geneva,  and  had 
been,  during  some  years,  accustomed  to  a  more  simple  wor- 
ship, and  to  a  more  democratical  form  of  church  government 
than  England  had  yet  seen.  These  men  returned  to  their 
country,  convinced  that  the  reform  which  had  been  effected 
under  King  Edward  had  been  far  less  searching  and  e&ten- 
sive  than  the  interests  of  pure  religion  required.  But  it  was 
in  vain  that  they  attempted  to  obtain  any  concession  from 
Elizabeth.  Indeed  her  system,  wherever  it  differed  from  her 
brother's,  seemed  to  them  to  differ  for  the  worse.  They  were 
little  disposed  to  submit,  in  matters  of  faith,  to  any  human 
authority.  They  had  recently,  in  reliance  on  their  own  in- 
terpretation of  Scripture,  risen  up  against  a  church  strong  in 
immemorial  antiquity  and  catholic  consent.  It  was  by  no 
common  exertion  of  intellectual  energy  that  they  had  thrown 
off  the  yoke  of  that  gorgeous  and  imperial  superstition  ;  and 
it  was  vain  to  expect  that,  immediately  after  such  an  eman- 
cipation, they  would  patiently  submit  to  a  new  spiritual  tyr- 
anny. Long  accustomed,  when  the  priest  lifted  up  the  host, 
to  bow  down  with  their  faces  to  the  earth,  as  before  a  present 
God,  they  had  learned  to  treat  the  mass  as  an  idolatrous 
mummery.  Long  accustomed  to  regard  the  pope  as  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  chief  of  the  apostles,  as  the  bearer  of  the  key 
of  earth  and  heaven,  they  had  learned  to  regard  him  as  the 
beast,  the  antichrist,  the  man  of  sin.  It  was  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  they  would  immediately  transfer  to  an  upstart 
authority  the  homage  which  they  had  withdrawn  from  the 
Vatican ;  that  they  would  submit  their  private  judgment  to  the 
authority  of  a  church  founded  on  private  judgment  alone , 
that  they  would  be  afraid  to  dissent  from  teachers  who  them- 
selves dissented  from  what  had  lately  been  the  universal  faith 
of  western  Christendom.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  the  indigna 
tion  which  must  have  been  felt  by  bold  and  inquisitive  spirits 
glorying  in  newly-acquired  freedom,  when  an  institutioi 
younger  by  many  years  than  themselves,  an  institution  which 
had,  under  their  own  eyes,  gradually  received  its  form  from 
the  passions  and  interests  of  a  court,  began  to  mimic  the  lofty 
style  of  Rome. 

Since  these  men  could  not  be  convinced,  it  was  determined 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  47 

;hat  they  should  be  persecuted.  Persecution  produced  its 
natural  effects  on  them.  It  found  them  a  sect :  it  made 
them  a  faction.  To  their  hatred  of  the  church  was  now 
added  hatred  of  the  crown.  The  two  sentiments  were  inter- 
mingled ;  and  each  imbittered  the  other.  The  opinions  of 
the  Puritan  concerning  the  relation  of  ruler  and  subject  were 
widely  different  from  those  which  were  inculcated  in  the 
homilies.  His  favorite  divines  had,  both  by  precept  and  by 
example,  encouraged  resistance  to  tyrants  and  persecutors. 
His  fellow-Calvinists  in  France,  in  Holland,  and  in  Scotland, 
were  in  arms  against  idolatrous  and  cruel  princes.  His 
notions,  too,  respecting  the  government  of  the  state  took  a 
tinge  from  his  notions  respecting  the  government  of  the  church. 
Some  of  the  sarcasms  which  were  popularly  thrown  on  episcopa- 
cy might,  without  much  difficulty,  be  turned  against  royalty  ;  and 
many  of  the  arguments  which  were  used  to  prove  that  spirit- 
ual power  was  best  lodged  in  a  synod  seemed  to  lead  to  the 
conclusion  that  temporal  power  was  best  lodged  in  a  par- 
liament. 

Thus,  as  the  priest  of  the  Established  Church  was,  from 
interest,  from  principle,  and  from  passion,  zealous  for  the  royal 
prerogatives,  the  Puritan  was,  from  interest,  from  principle, 
and  from  passion,  hostile  to  them.  The  power  of  the  dis- 
contented sectaries  was  great.  They  were  found  in  every 
rank  ;  but  they  were  strongest  among  the  mercantile  classes  in 
the  towns,  and  among  the  small  proprietors  in  the  country 
Early  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  they  began  to  return  a  major- 
ity of  the  House  of  Commons.  And  doubtless,  had  our 
ancestors  been  then  at  liberty  to  fix  their  attention  entirely  on 
domestic  questions,  the  strife  between  the  crown  and  the  par- 
liament would  instantly  have  commenced.  But  that  was  no 
season  for  internal  dissensions.  It  might,  indeed,  well  be 
doubted,  whether  the  firmest  union  among  all  the  orders  of 
the  state  could  avert  the  common  danger  by  which  all  were 
threatened.  Roman  Catholic  Europe  and  reformed  Europe 
were  struggling  for  death  or  life.  France,  divided  against 
herself,  had,  for  a  time,  ceased  to  be  of  any  account  in 
Christendom.  The  English  government  was  at  the  head  ,of 
the  Protestant  interest,  and,  while  persecuting  Presbyterians  at 
home,  extended  a  powerful  protection  to  Presbyterian  churches 
abroad.  At  the  head  of  the  opposite  party  was  the  mightiest 
prince  of  the  age,  a  prince  who  ruled  Spain,  Portugal,  Italy, 
the  Netherlands,  the  East  and  the  West  Indies,  whose  armies 


48  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

repeatedly  marched  to  Paris,  and  whose  fleets  kept  the  coasts 
of  Devonshire  and  Sussex  in  alarm.  It  long  seemed  probable 
that  Englishmen  would  have  to  fight  desperately  on  English 
ground  for  their  religion  and  independence.  Nor  were  they 
ever  for  a  moment  free  from  apprehensions  of  some  great 
treason  at  home.  For  in  that  age  it  had  become  a  point  of 
conscience  and  of  honor  with  many  men  of  generous  natures 
to  sacrifice  their  country  to  their  religion.  A  succession  of 
dark  plots  formed  by  Roman  Catholics  against  the  life  of  the 
queen,  and  the  existence  of  the  nation,  kept  society  in  con- 
stant alarm.  Whatever  might  be  the  faults  of  Elizabeth,  it 
was  plain  that,  to  speak  humanly,  the  fate  of  the  realm  and 
of  all  reformed  churches  was  staked  on  the  security  of  her 
person  and  on  the  success  of  her  administration.  To 
strengthen  her  hands  was,  therefore,  the  first  duty  of  a 
patriot  and  a  Protestant ;  and  that  duty  was  well  performed. 
The  Puritans,  even  in  the  depths  of  the  prisons  to  which  she 
had  sent  them,  prayed,  and  with  no  simulated  fervor,  that  she 
might  be  kept  from  the  dagger  of  the  assassin,  that  rebellion 
might  be  put  down  under  her  feet,  and  that  her  arms  might 
be  victorious  by  sea  and  land.  One  of  the  most  stubborn 
of  the  stubborn  sect,  immediately  after  one  of  his  hands  had 
been  lopped  off  by  the  executioner  for  an  offence  into  which 
he  had  been  hurried  by  his  intemperate  zeal,  waved  his  hat 
with  the  hand  which  was  still  left  him,  and  shouted, "  God  save 
the  Queen  !  "  The  sentiment  with  which  these  men  regarded 
her  has  descended  to  their  posterity.  The  Nonconformists, 
rigorously  as  she  treated  them,  have,  as  a  body,  always  ven- 
erated her  memory.* 

During  the  greater  part  of  her  reign,  therefore,  the  Pu- 
ritans in  the  House  of  Commons,  though  sometimes  mutinous, 
felt  no  disposition  to  array  themselves  in  systematic  opposition 
to  the  government.  But,  when  the  defeat  of  the  Armada,  the 
successful  resistance  of  the  United  Provinces  to  the  Spanish 

*  The  Puritan  historian  Xeale,  after  censuring  the  cruelty  with 
which  she  treated  the  sect  to  -which  he  belonged,  concludes  thus : 
'However,  notwithstanding  all  these  blemishes,  Queen  Elizabeth 
stands  upon  record  as  a  wise  and  politic  princess,  for  delivering  her 
kingdom  from  the  difficulties  in  which  it  was  involved  at  her  acces- 
sion, for  preserving  the  Protestant  reformation  against  the  potent 
attempts  of  the  Pope,  the  Emperor,  and  King  of  Spain  abroad,  and 
the  Queen  of  Scots  and  her  Popish  subjects  at  home.  .  .  .  She  was 
the  glory  of  the  age  in  which  she  lived,  and  will  be  the  admiration  of 
posterity." — History  of  the  l^uritans,  Part  I.  Chan.  viii. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  43 

power,  the  firm  establishment  of  Henry  the  Fourth  on  the 
throne  of  France,  and  the  death  of  Philip  the  Second,  had 
secured  the  state  and  the  church  against  all  danger  from  abroad, 
an  obstinate  struggle,  destined  to  last  during  several  gen- 
erations, instantly  began  at  home. 

It  was  in  the  parliament  of  1601  that  the  opposition  which 
had,  during  forty  years,  been  silently  gathering  and  husband- 
ing strength,  fought  its  first  great  battle  and  won  its  first 
victory.  The  ground  was  well  chosen.  The  English  sover- 
eigns had  always  been  intrusted  with  the  supreme  direction 
of  commercial  police.  It  was  their  undoubted  prerogative  to 
regulate  coin,  weights  and  measures,  and  to  appoint  fairs, 
markets,  and  ports.  The  line  which  bounded  their  authority 
over  trade  had,  as  usual,  been  but  loosely  drawn.  They  there- 
fore, as  usual,  encroached  on  the  province  which  rightfully 
belonged  to  the  legislature.  The  encroachment  was,  as  usual, 
patiently  borne,  till  it  became  serious.  But  at  length  the 
queen  took  upoii  herself  to  grant  patents  of  monopoly  by 
scores.  There  was  scarcely  a  family  in  the  realm  which  did 
not  feel  itself  aggrieved  by  the  oppression  and  extortion  which 
this  abuse  naturally  caused.  Iron,  oil,  vinegar,  coal,  salt- 
petre, lead,  starch,  yarn,  skins,  leather,  glass,  could  be  bought 
only  at  exorbitant  prices.  The  House  of  Commons  met  in 
an  angry  and  determined  mood.  It  was  in  vain  that  a  courtly 
minority  blamed  the  speaker  for  suffering  the  acts  of  the 
queen's  highness  to  be  called  in  question.  The  language  of 
the  discontented  party  was  high  and  menacing,  and  was 
echoed  by  the  voice  of  the  whole  nation.  The  coach  of  the 
chief  minister  of  the  crown  was  surrounded  by  an  indignant 
populace,  who  cursed  the  monopolies,  and  exclaimed  that  the 
prerogative  should  not  be  suffered  to  touch  the  old  liberties 
of  England.  There  seemed  for  a  moment  to  be  some 
danger  that  the  long  and  glorious  reign  of  Elizabeth  would 
have  a  shameful  and  disastrous  end.  She,  however,  with 
admirable  judgment  and  temper,  declined  the  contest,  put 
herself  at  the  head  of  the  reforming  party,  redressed  the 
grievance,  thanked  the  Commons,  in  touching  and  dignified 
language,  for  their  tender  care  of  the  general  weal,  brought 
back  to  herself  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  left  to  her  suc- 
cessors a  memorable  example  of  the  way  in  which  it  behoves 
a  ruler  to  deal  with  public  movements  which  he  has  not  the 
means  of  resisting. 

In  the  year  1603  the  great  queen  died.  That  year  is,  on 
VOL.  i.  5 


50  HISTORY    Cif    ENGLAND. 

many  accounts,  one  of  the  most  important  epochs  in  oui 
history.  It  was  then  that  .both  Scotland  and  Ireland  became 
parts  of  the  same  empire  with  England.  Both  Scotland  and 
Ireland,  indeed,  had  been  subjugated  by  the  Plantagenets,  but 
neither  country  had  been  patient  under  the  yoke.  Scotland 
had,  with  heroic  energy,  vindicated  her  independence,  had, 
from  the  time  of  Robert  Bruce,  been  a  separate  kingdom,  and 
was  now  joined  to  the  southern  part  of  the  island  in  a  manner 
which  rather  gratified  than  wounded  her  national  pride.  Ire- 
land had  never,  since  the  days  of  Henry  the  Second,  been 
;ible  to  expel  the  foreign  invaders  ;  but  she  had  struggled 
against  them  long  and  fiercely.  During  the  fourteenth  and 
lifteenth  centuries,  the  English  power  in  that  island  was  con- 
stantly declining,  and,  in  the  days  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  had 
sunk  to  the  lowest  point.  The  Irish  dominions  of  that  prince 
consisted  only  of  the  counties  of  Dublin  and  Louth,  of  some 
parts  of  Meath  and  Kildare,  and  of  a  few  seaports  scattered 
along  the  coast.  A  large  portion  even  of  -Leinster  was  not 
yet  divided  into  counties.  Munster,  Ulster,  and  Connaught 
were  ruled  by  petty  sovereigns,  partly  Celts,  and  partly  de- 
generate Normans,  who  had  forgotten  their  origin,  and  had 
adopted  the  Celtic  language  and  manners.  But,  during  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  English  power  had  made  great  progress. 
The  half  savage  chieftains,  who  reigned  beyond  the  pale,  had 
yielded  one  after  "another  to  the  lieutenants  of  the  Tudors. 
At  length,  a  few  weeks  before  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  the 
conquest,  which  had  been  begun  more  than  four  hundred 
years  before  by  Strongbow,  _was  completed  by  Mountjoy. 
Scarcely  had  James  the  First  mounted  the  English  throne ; 
when  the  last  O'Donnell  and  O'Neill  who  have  held  the  rank 
of  independent  princes  kissed  his  hand  at  Whitehall.  Thence- 
forward his  writs  ran  and  his  judges  held  assizes  in  every  part 
of  Ireland ;  and  the  English  law  superseded  the  customs 
which  had  prevailed  among  the  aboriginal  tribes. 

In  extent,  Scotland  and  Ireland  were  nearly  equal  to  each 
other,  and  were  together  nearly  equal  to  England,  but  were 
much  less  thickly  peopled  than  England,  and  were  very  far 
behind  England  in  wealth  and  civilization.  Scotland  had  been 
kept  back  by  the  sterility  of  her  soil ;  and,  in  the  midst  of 
light,  the  thick  darkness  of  the  middls  ages  still  rested  on 
Ireland. 

The  population  of  Scotland,  with  the  exception  of  the  Cel 
tic  tribes  which  were  thinly  scattered  over  the  Hebrides  and 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  51 

over  the  mountainous  parts  of  the  northern  shires,  was  of  the 
same  blood  with  the  population  of  England,  and  spoke  a  tongue 
which  did  not  differ  from  the  purest  English  more  than  the 
dialects  of  Somersetshire  and  Lancashire  differed  from  each 
other.  In  Ireland,  on  the  contrary,  the  population,  with  the 
exceptioa  of  the  small  English  colony  near  the  coast,  was 
Celtic,  and  still  kept  the  Celtic  speech  and  manners. 

In  natural  courage  and  intelligence,  both  the  nations  which 
now  became  connected  with  England  ranked  high.  In  perse- 
verance, in  self-command,  in  forethought,  in  all  the  qualities 
which  conduce  to  success  in  life,  the  Scots  have  never  been 
surpassed.  The  Irish,  on  the  other  hand,  were  distinguished 
by  qualities  which  tend  to  make  men  interesting,  rather  than 
prosperous.  They  were  an  ardent  and  impetuous  race,  easily 
moved  to  tears  or  to  laughter,  to  fury  or  to  love.  Alone 
among  the  nations  of  northern  Europe,  they  had  the  suscep- 
tibility, the  vivacity,  the  natural  turn  for  acting  and  rhetoric, 
which  are  indigenous  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea. 
In  mental  cultivation,  Scotland  had  an  indisputable  superiority. 
Though  that  kingdom  was  then  the  poorest  in  Christendom,  it 
already  vied  in  every  branch  of  learning  with  the  most  favored 
countries.  Scotsmen,  whose  dwellings  and  whose  food  were 
as  wretched  as  those  of  the  Icelanders  of  our  time,  wrote 
Latin  verse  with  more  than  the  delicacy  of  Vida,  and  made 
discoveries  in  science  which  would  have  added  to  the  renown 
of  Galileo.  Ireland  could  boast  of  no  Buchanan  or  Napier. 
The  genius  with  which  her  aboriginal  inhabitants  were  largely 
endowed,  showed  itself,  as  yet,  only  in  ballads  which,  wild 
and  rugged  as  they  were,  seemed  to  the  judging  eye  of  Spen- 
ser to  contain  a  portion  of  the  p"vo  -oM  of  poetry. 

Scotland,  in  becoming  part  01  n.o  Jritisn  i^onarchy,  pre- 
served all  her  dignity.  Having,  during  many  generations, 
courageously  withstood  the  English  arms  she  was  now  joined 
.to  her  stronger  neighbor  on  the  most  honorable  terms.  She 
gave  a  king  instead  of  receiving  one.  She  retained  her  own 
constitution  and  laws.  Her  tribunals  and  parliaments  re- 
mained entirely  independent  of  the  tribunals  and  parliaments 
which  sate  at  Westminster.  The  administration  of  Scotland 
was  in  Scottish  hands ;  for  no  Englishman  had  any  motive  to 
emigrate  northward,  and  to  contend  with  the  shrewdest  and 
most  pertinacious  of  all  races  for  what  was  to  be  scraped 
together  in  the  poorest  of  all  treasuries.  Meanwhile,  Scottish 
adventurers  poured  southward,  and  obtained,  in  all  the  walks 


52  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  life,  a  prosperity  which  excited  much  envy,  but  which  was, 
in  general,  only  the  just  reward  of  prudence  and  industry. 
Neverthsless,  Scotland  by  no  means  escaped  the  fate  ordained 
for  every  country  which  is  connected,  but  not  incorporated, 
with  another  country  of  greater  resources.  Though  in  name 
an  independent  kingdom,  she  was,  during  more  than  a  cen 
tury,  really  treated,  in  many  respects,  as  a  subject  province. 

Ireland  was  undisguisedly  governed  as  a  dependency  won 
by  the  sword.  Her  rude  national  institutions  had  perished. 
The  English  colonists  submitted  to  the  dictation  of  the  mother 
country,  without  whose  support  they  could  not  exist,  and  in- 
demnified themselves  by  trampling  on  the  people  among  whom 
they  had  settled.  The  parliament  which  met  at  Dublin  could 
pass  no  law  which  had  not  previously  been  approved  by  the 
English  Privy  Council.  The  authority  of  the  English  legis- 
lature extended  over  Ireland.  The  executive  administration 
was  intrusted  to  men  taken  either  from  England  or  from  the 
English  pale,  and,  in  either  case,  regarded  as  foreigners,  and 
even  as  enemies,  by  the  Celtic  population. 

But  the  circumstance  which,  more  than  any  other,  has  made 
Ireland  to  differ  from  Scotland  remains  to  be  noticed.  Scot- 
land was  Protestant.  In  no  part  of  Europe  had  the  movement 
of  the  popular  mind  against  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  been 
so  rapid  and  violent.  The  reformers  had  vanquished,  de- 
posed, and  imprisoned,  their  idolatrous  sovereign.  They 
would  not  endure  even  such  a  compromise  as  had  been 
effected  in  England.  They  had  established  the  Calvinistic 
doctrine,  discipline,  and  worship  ;  and  they  made  little  dis- 
tinction between  popery  and  prelacy,  the  mass  and  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer.  Unfortunately  for  Scotland,  the  prince 
whom  she  sent  to  govern  a  fairer  inheritance  had  been  so 
much  annoyed  by  the  pertinacity  with  which  her  theologians 
had  asserted  against  him  the  privileges  of  the  synod  and  the 
pulpit,  that  he  hated  the  ecclesiastical  polity  to  which  she  was 
fondly  attached  as  much  as  it  was  in  his  effeminate  nature  to 
hate  any  thing,  and  had  no  sooner  mounted  the  English  throne, 
than  he  began  to  show  an  intolerant  zeal  for  the  government 
and  ritual  of  the  English  Church. 

The  Irish  were  the  only  people  of  northern  Europe  who 
had  remained  true  to  the  old  religion.  This  is  to  be  partly 
ascribed  to  the  circumstance  that  they  were  some  centuries 
behind  their  neighbors  in  knowledge.  But  other  causes  had 
cooperated.  The  Reformation  had  been  a  national  as  well  as 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  53 

a  moral  revolt.  It  had  been  not  only  an  insurrection  of  the 
laity  against  the  clergy,  but  also  an  insurrection  of  all  the 
branches  of  the  greaf  German  race  against  an  alien  domina- 
tion. It  is  a  most  significant  circumstance  that  no  large  soci- 
ety of  which  the  tongue  is  not  Teutonic  has  ever  turned  Prot- 
estant, and  that,  wherever  a  language  derived  from  that  of 
ancient  Rome  is  spoken,  the  religion  of  modern  Rome,  to  this 
day,  prevails.  The  patriotism  of  the  Irish  had  taken  a  pecu- 
liar direction.  The  object  of  their  animosity  was  not  Rome, 
but  England ;  and  they  had  especial  reason  to  abhor  those 
English  sovereigns  who  had  been  the  chiefs  of  the  great 
schism,  Henry  the  Eighth  and  Elizabeth.  During  the  vain 
struggle  which  two  generations  of  Milesian  princes  maintained 
against  the  Tudors,  religious  enthusiasm  and  national  enthu- 
siasm became  inseparably  blended  in  the  minds  .of  the  van- 
quished race.  The  new  feud  of  Protestant  and  Papist  inflamed 
the  old  feud  of  Saxon  and  Celt.  The  English  conquerors, 
meanwhile,  neglected  all  legitimate  means  of  conversion.  No 
pains  were  taken  to  provide  the  conquered  nation  with  instruct- 
ors capable  of  making  themselves  understood.  No  translation 
of  the  Bible  was  put  forth  in  the  Erse  language.  The  govern- 
ment contented  itself  with  setting  up  -a  vast  hierarchy  of 
Protestant  archbishops,  bishops,  and  rectors,  who  did  nothing, 
and  who,  for  doing  nothing,  were  paid  out  of  the  spoils  of  a 
church  loved  and  revered  by  the  great  body  of  the  people. 

There  was  much  in  the  state  both  of  Scotland  and  of  Ire- 
land which  might  well  excite  the  painful  apprehensions  of  a 
farsighted  statesman.  As  yet,  however,  there  was  the  ap- 
pearance of  tranquillity.  For  the  first  time  all  the  British 
isles  were  peaceably  united  under  one  sceptre. 

It  should  seem  that  the  weight  of  England  among  European 
nations  ought,  from  this  epoch,  to  have  greatly  increased. 
The  territory  which  her  new  king  governed  was,  in  extent, 
nearly  double  that  which  Elizabeth  had  inherited.  His 
empire  was  also  the  most  complete  within  itself  and  the  most 
secure  from  attack  that  was  to  be  found  in  the  world.  The 
Plantagenets  and  Tudors  had  been  repeatedly  under  the 
necessity  of  defending  themselves  against  Scotland,  while 
they  were  engaged  in  continental  war.  The  long  conflict  in 
Ireland  had  been  a  severe  and  perpetual  drain  on  the  re- 
sources. Yet  even  under  such  disadvantages  those  sovereigns 
had  been  highly  considered  throughout  Christendom.  It 
might,  therefore,  not  unreasonably  be  expected  that  England, 
5* 


54   '  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Scotland,  and  Ireland  combined  would  form  a  state  second  to 
none  that  then  existed. 

All  such  expectations  were  strangely  disappointed.  On  the 
day  of  the  accession  of  James  the  First  our  country  descended 
from  the  rank  which  she  had  hitherto  held,  and  began  to  be 
regarded  as  a  power  hardly  of  the  second  order.  During 
many  years  the  great  British  monarchy,  under  four  successive 
princes  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  was  scarcely  a  more  impor- 
tant member  of  the  European  system  than  the  little  kingdom 
of  Scotland  had  previously  been.  This,  however,  is  little  to 
be  regretted.  Of  James  the  First,  as  of  John,  it  may  be  said 
that  if  his  administration  had  been  able  and  splendid,  it  would 
probably  have  been  fatal  to  our  country,  and  that  we  owe 
more  to  his  weaknesses  and  meannesses  than  to  the  wisdom 
and  courage  of  much  better  sovereigns.  He  came  to  the 
throne  at  a  critical  moment.  The  time  was  fast  approaching 
when  either  the  king  must  become  absolute,  or  the  parliament 
must  control  the  whole  executive  administration.  Had  ho 
been,  like  Henry  the  Fourth,  like  Maurice  of  Nassau,  or  like 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  a  valiant,  active,  and  politic  ruler,  had  he 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  Protestants  of  Europe,  had  he 
gained  great  victories  over  Tilly  and  Spinola,  had  he  adorned 
Westminster  with  the  spoils  of  Bavarian  monasteries  and 
Flemish  cathedrals,  had  he  hung  Austrian  and  Castilian  ban- 
ners in  Samt  Paul's,  and  had  he  found  himself,  after  great 
achievements,  at  the  head  of  fifty  thousand  troops,  brave, 
well  disciplined,  and  devotedly  attached  to  his  person,  the 
English  parliament  would  soon  have  been  nothing  more  than 
a  name.  Happily  he  was  not  a  man  to  play  such  a  part. 
He  began  his  administration  by  putting  an  end  to  the  war 
which  had  raged  during  many  years  between  England  and 
Spain ;  and  from  that  time  he  shunned  hostilities  with  a 
caution  which  was  proof  against  the  insults  of  his  neighbors 
and  the  clamors  of  his  subjects.  Not  till  the  last  year  of  his/4,- 
life  could  the  influence  of  his  son,  his  favorite,  his  parliament, 
and  his  people  combined,  induce  him  to  strike  one  feeble 
blow  in  defence  of  his  family  and  of  his  religion.  It  was 
well  for  those  whom  he  governed,  that  he  in  this  matter  dis- 
regarded their  wishes.  The  effect  of  his  pacific  policy  was, 
that  in  his  time  no  regular  troops  were  needed,  and  that, 
while  France,  Spain,  Italy,  Belgium,  and  Germany  swarmed 
with  mercenary  soldiers,  the  defence  of  our  island  was  still 
confided  to  the  militia. 


HISTORY    C.F    ENGLAND.  55 

As  the  king  had  no  standing  army,  and  did  not  ever,  at- 
tempt to  form  one,  it  would  have  been  wise  in  him  to  avoid 
any  conflict  with  his  people.  But  such  was  his  indiscretion, 
that  while  he  altogether  neglected  the  means  which  alone 
could  make  him  really  absolute,  he  constantly  put  forward,  in 
the  most  offensive  form,  claims  of  which  none  of  his  pred- 
ecessors had  ever  dreamed.  It  was  at  this  time  that  those 
strange  theories  which  Filmer  afterwards  formed  into  a  sys- 
tem, and  which  became  the  badge  of  the  most  violent  class 
of  Tories  and  high  churchmen,  first  emerged  into  notice.  It 
was  gravely  maintained  that  the  Supreme  Being  regarded 
hereditary  monarchy,  as  opposed  to  other  forms  of  govern- 
ment, with  peculiar  favor ;  that  the  rule  of  succession  in 
order  of  primogeniture  was  a  divine  institution,  anterior  to 
the  Christian,  and  even  to  the  Mosaic  dispensation  ;  that  no 
human  power,  not  even  that  of  the  whole  legislature,  no 
length  of  adverse  possession,  though  it  extended  to  ten  cen- 
turies, eould  deprive  the  legitimate  prince  of  his  rights ;  that 
his  authority  was  necessarily  always  despotic ;  that  the  laws 
by  which,  in  England  and  in  other  countries,  the  prerogative 
was  limited,  were  to  be  regarded  merely  as  concessions  which 
the  sovereign  had  freely  made  and  might  at  his  pleasure 
resume ;  and  that  any  treaty  into  which  a  king  might  enter 
with  his  people  was  merely  a  declaration  of  his  present 
intentions,  and  not  a  contract  of  which  the  performance  could 
be  demanded.  It  is  evident  that  this  theory,  though  intended 
to  strengthen  the  foundations  of  government,  altogether  un- 
settles them.  Did  the  divine  and  immutable  law  of  pri- 
mogeniture admit  females  or  exclude  them  ?  On  either 
supposition  half  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  must  be  usurpers, 
reigning  in  defiance  of  the  commands  of  Heaven,  and  might 
be  justly  dispossessed  by  the  rightful  heirs.  These  absurd  doc- 
trines received  no  countenance  from  the  Old  Testament ;  for 
in  the  Old  Testament  we  read  that  the  chosen  people  were 
blamed  and  punished  for  desiring  a  king,  and  that  they  were 
afterwards  commanded  to  withdraw  their  allegiance  from  him. 
Their  whole  history,  far  from  favoring  the  notion  that  pri- 
mogeniture is  of  divine  institution,  would  rather  seem  to 
indicate  that  younger  brothers  are  under  the  especial  pro- 
tection of  Heaven.  Isaac  was  not  the  eldest  son  of  Abraham, 
nor  Jacob  of  Isaac,  nor  Judah  of  Jacob,  nor  David  of  Jesse, 
nor  Solomon  of  David.  Indeed  tho  order  of  seniority  among 
children  is  seldom  strictly  regarded  in  countries  where 


56  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

polygamy  is  practised.  Neither  did  the  system  of  Filmer 
receive  any  countenance  from  those  passages  of  the  New 
Testament  which  describe  government  as  an  ordinance  of 
God  ;  for  the  government  under  which  the  writers  of  the  New- 
Testament  lived  was  not  an  hereditary  monarchy.  The  Roman 
emperors  were  republican  magistrates,  named  by  the  Senate. 
None  of  them  pretended  to  rule  by  right  of  birth  ;  and,  in 
fact,  both  Tiberius,  to  whom  Christ  commanded  that  tribute 
should  be  given,  and  Nero,  whom  Paul  directed  the  Romans 
to  obey,  were,  according  to  the  patriarchal  theory  of  govern- 
ment, usurpers.  In  the  middle  ages  the  doctrine  of  indefea- 
sible hereditary  right  would  have  been  regarded  as  heretical : 
for  it  was  altogether  incompatible  with  the  high  pretensions 
of  the  Church  of  Rome.  It  was  a  doctrine  unknown  to  the 
founders  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  Homily  on  Wilful 
Rebellion  had  strongly,  and  indeed  too  strongly,  inculcated 
submission  to  constituted  authority,  but  had  made  no  dis- 
tinction between  hereditary  and  elective  monarchies,  or 
between  monarchies  and  republics.  Indeed  most  of  the 
predecessors  of  James  would,  from  personal  motives,  have 
regarded  the  patriarchal  theory  of  government  with  aversion. 
William  Rufus,  Henry  the  First,  Stephen,  John,  Henry  the 
Fourth,  Henry  the  Fifth,  Henry  the  Sixth,  Richard  thye  Third, 
and  Henry  the  Seventh,  had  all  reigned  in  defiance  of  the 
strict  rule  of  descent.  A  grave  doubt  hung  over  the  legit- 
imacy both  of  Mary  and  of  Elizabeth.  It  was  impossible 
that  both  Catharine  of  Aragon  and  Anne  Boleyn  could  have 
been  lawfully  married  to  Henry  the  Eighth  ;  and  the  highest 
authority  in  the  realm  had  pronounced  that  neither  was  so. 
The  Tudors,  far  from  considering  the  law  of  succession  as  a 
divine  and  unchangeable  institution,  were  constantly  tamper- 
ing with  it.  Henry  the  Eighth  obtained  an  act  of  parliament, 
giving  him  power  to  leave  the  crown  by  will,  and  actually 
made  a  will  to  the  prejudice  of  the  royal  family  of  Scotland. 
Edward  the  Sixth,  unauthorized  by  parliament,  assumed  a 
similar  power,  with  the  full  approbation  of  the  most  eminent 
Reformers.  Elizabeth,  conscious  that  her  own  title  was  open 
to  grave  objection,  and  unwillirg  to  admit  even  a  reversionary 
right  in  her  rival  and  enemy  the  Queen  of  Scots,  induced  the 
parliament  to  pass  a  law,  enacting  that  whoever  should  deny 
the  competency  of  the  reigning  sovereign,  with  the  assent  of 
the  estates  of  the  realm,  to  alter  the  succession,  should  suffer 
death  as  a  traitor.  But  the  situation  of  James  was  widely 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  57 

different  from  that  of  Elizabeth.  Far  inferior  to  her  in  abili- 
ties and  in  popularity,  regarded  by  the  English  as  an  alien, 
and  excluded  from  the  throne  by  the  testament  of  Henry  the 
Eighth,  the  king  of  Scots  was  yet  the  undoubted  heir  of  Wil- 
liam the  Conqueror  and  of  Egbert.  He  had,  therefore,  an 
obvious  interest  in  inculcating  the  superstitious  notion  that 
birth  confers  rights  anterior  to  law,  and  unalterable  by  law. 
It  was  a  notion,  moreover,  well  suited  to  his  intellect  and  tem- 
per. It  soon  found  many  advocates  among  those  who  aspired 
to  his  favor,  and  made  rapid  progress  among  the  clergy  of  the 
Established  Church. 

Thus,  at  the  very  moment  at  which  a  republican  spirit  be- 
gan to  manifest  itself  strongly  in  the  parliament  and  in  the 
country,  the  claims  of  the  monarch  took  a  monstrous  form, 
which  would  have  disgusted  the  proudest  and  most  arbitrary 
of  those  who  had  preceded  him  on  the  throne. 

James  was  always  boasting  of  his '  skill  in  what  he  called 
kingcraft;  and  yet  it  is  hardly  possible  even  to  imagine  a 
course  more  directly  opposed  to  all  the  rules  of  kingcraft  than 
that  which  he  followed.  The  policy  of  wise  rulers  has  always 
been  to  disguise  strong  acts  under  popular  forms.  It  was  thus 
that  Augustus  and  Napoleon  established  absolute  monarchies, 
while  the  public  regarded  them  merely  as  eminent  citizens 
invested  with  temporary  magistracies.  The  policy  of  James 
was  the  direct  reverse  of  theirs.  He  enraged  and  alarmed 
his  parliament  by  constantly  telling  them  that  they  held  their 
privileges  merely  during  his  pleasure,  and  that  they  had  no 
more  business  to  inquire  what  he  might  lawfully  do  than  what 
the  Deity  might  lawfully  do.  Yet  he  quailed  before  them, 
abandoned  minister  after  minister  to  their  vengeance,  and 
suffered  them  to  tease  him  into  acts  directly  opposed  to  his 
strongest  inclinations.  Thus  the  indignation  excited  by  his 
claims  and  the  scorn  excited  by  his  concessions  went  on  grow- 
ing together.  By  his  fondness  for  worthless  minions,  and  by 
thf  sanction  which  he  gave  to  their  tyranny  and  rapacity,  he 
kipt  discontent  constantly  alive.  His  cowardice,  his  childish- 
ness, his  pedantry,  his  ungainly  person  and  manners,  his  pro- 
vincial accent  made  him  an  object  of  derision.  Even  in  his 
virtues  and  accomplishments  there  was' something  eminently 
unkingly.  Thus,  during  the  whole  course  of  his  reign,  all 
the  venerable  associations  by  which  the  throne  had  long  been 
fenced,  were  gradually  losing  their  strength.  During  two 
hundred  years  all  the  sovereigns  who  had  ruled  England,  with 
5* 


58  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  single  exception  of  the  "unfortunate  Henry  the  Sixth,  had 
been  strong-minded,  high-spirited,  courageous,  and  of  princely 
bearing.  Almost  all  had  possessed  abilities  above  the  ordi^ 
nary  level.  It  was  no  light  thing  that,  on  the  very  eve  of  the 
decisive  struggle  between  our  kings  and  their,  parliaments, 
royalty  should  be  exhibited  to  the  world  stammering,  slobber- 
ing, shedding  unmanly  tears,  trembling  at  a  drawn  sword,  and 
talking  in  the  style  alternately  of  a  buffoon  and  of  a  peda- 
gogue. 

In  the  mean  time  the  religious  dissensions,  by  which,  from 
the  days  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  the  Protestant  body  had  been 
distracted,  had  become  more  formidable  than  ever.  The 
interval  which  had  separated  the  first  generation  of  Puritans 
from  Cranmer  and  Jewel,  was  small  indeed  when  compared 
with  the  interval  which  separated  the  third  generation  of  Puri- 
tans from  Laud  and  Hammond.  While  the  recollection  of 
Mary's  cruelties  was  still  fresh,  while  the  strength  of  the  Cath- 
olic party  still  inspired  apprehension,  while  Spain  still  retained 
ascendency  and  aspired  to  universal  dominion,  all  the  reformed 
sects  knew  that  they  had  a  strong  common  interest  and  a 
deadly  common  enemy.  The  animosity  which  they  felt 
towards  each  other  was  languid  when  compared  with  the  ani- 
mosity which  they  all  felt  towards  Eome.  Conformists  and 
Nonconformists  had  heartily  joined  in  enacting  penal  laws  of 
extreme  severity  against  the  Papists.  But  when  more  than 
half  a  century  of  undisturbed  possession  had  given  confidence 
to  the  Established  Church,  when  nine  tenths  of  the  nation  had 
become  heartily  Protestant,  when  England  was  at  peace  with 
all  the  world,  when  there  was  no  danger  that  Popery  would 
be  forced  by  foreign  arms  on  the  nation,  when  the  last  con- 
fessors who  had  stood  before  Bonner  had  passed  away,  a  change 
took  place  in  the  feeling  of  the  Anglican  clergy.  Their  hos- 
tility to  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine  and  discipline  was  con- 
siderably mitigated.  Their  dislike  of  the  Puritans,  on  the  other 
hand,  increased  daily.  The  controversies,  which  had  from 
the  beginning  divided  the  Protestant  party,  took  such  a  form 
as  made  reconciliation  hopeless ;  and  new  controversies  of  still 
greater  importance  were  added  to  the  old  subjects  of  dispute. 

The  founders  of  the  Anglican  Church  had  retained  episco- 
pacy as  an  ancient,  a  decent,  and  a  convenient  ecclesiastical 
polity,  but  had  not  declared  that  form  of  church  government 
to  be  of  divine  institution.  We  have  already  seen  how  low 
an  estimate  Cranmer  had  formed  of  the  office  of  a  bishop.  la 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  59 

the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  Jewel,  Cooper,  Whitgift,  and  other 
eminent  doctors  defended  prelacy  as  innocent,  as  useful,  as 
what  the  state  might  lawfully  establish,  as  what,  when  estab- 
lished by  the  state,  was  entitled  to  the  respect  of  every  citizen. 
But  they  never  denied  that  a  ^Christian  community  without  a 
bishop  might  be  a  pure  church.  On  the  contrary,  they  regard- 
ed the  Protestants  of  the  Continent  as  of  the  same  household 
of  faith  with  themselves.  Englishmen  in  England  were  in- 
deed bound  to  acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  bishop,  as  they 
were  bound  to  acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  sheriff  and  of 
the  coroner  :  but  the  obligation  was  purely  local.  An  English 
churchman,  nay,  even  an  English  prelate,  if  he  went  to  Hol- 
land, conformed  without  scruple  to  the  established  religion  of 
Holland.  Abroad  the  ambassadors  of  Elizabeth  and  James 
went  in  state  to  the  very  worship  which  Elizabeth  and  James 
persecuted  at  home,  and  carefully  abstained  from  decorating 
their  private  chapels  after  the  Anglican  fashion,  lest  scanda] 
should  be  given  to  weaker  brethren.  It  was  even  held  that 
Presbyterian  ministers  were  entitled  to  place  and  voice  in  oec- 
umenical councils.  When  the  States  General  of  the  United 
Provinces  convoked  at  Dort  a  synod  of  doctors  not  episcopally 
ordained,  an  English  bishop  and  an  English  dean-,  commis- 
sioned by  the  head  of  the  English  Church,  sate  with  those 
doctors,  preached  to  them,  and  voted  with  them  on  the  gravest 
questions  of  theology.*  Nay,  many  English  benefices  were 
held  by  divines  who  had  been  admitted  to  the  ministry  in  the 
Calvinistic  form  used  on  the  Continent ;  nor  was  reordination 
by  a  bishop  in  such  cases  then  thought  necessary,  or  even 
lawful. 

But  a  new  race  of  divines  was  already  rising  in  the  Church 
of  England.  In  their  view  the  episcopal  office  was  essential 
to  the  welfare  of  a  Christian  society  and  to  the  efficacy  of  the 
most  solemn  ordinances  of  religion.  To  that  office  belonged 
certain  high  and  sacred  privileges,  which  no  human  power 
could  give  or  take  away.  A  church  might  as  well  be  without 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  or  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation, 
as  without  the  apostolical  orders ;  and  the  Church  of  Rome, 


*  Joseph.  Hall,  then  der,n  of  "Worcester,  and  afterwards  bishop  of 
Norwich,  was  one  of  the  commissioners.  In  his  life  of  himself,  he 
says  :  "  My  unworthiness  was  named  for  one  of  the  assistants  of  that 
honorable,  grave,  and  reverend  meeting."  To  high  churchmen  this 
humility  will  seem  not  a  little  out  of  place. 


60  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

which,  in  the  midst  of  all  her  corruptions,  had  retained  the 
apostolical  orders,  was  nearsr  to  primitive  purity  than  those 
reformed  societies  which  had  rashly  set  up,  in  opposition  to 
the  divine  model,  a  system  invented  by  men. 

In  the  d&ys  of  Edward  the  Sixth  and  of  Elizabeth,  the  de- 
fenders of  xiic  Anglican  ritual  had  generally  contented  them- 
selves with  saying  that  it  might  be  used  without  sin,  and  that, 
therefore,  none  but  a  perverse  and  undutiful  subject  would 
refuse  to  use  it  when  enjoined  to  do  so  by  the  magistrate. 
Now,  however,  that  rising  parly  which  claimed  for  the  polity 
of  the  church  a  celestial  origin  began  to  ascribe  to  her  ser- 
vices a  new  dignity  and  importance.  It  was  hinted  that,  if 
the  established  worship  had  any  fault,  that  fault  was  extreme 
simplicity,  and  that  the  Reformers  had,  in  the  heat  of  their 
quarrel  with  Rome,  abolished  many  ancient  ceremonies  which 
might  with  advantage  have  been  retained.  Days  and  places 
were  again  held  in  mysterious  veneration.  Some  practices 
which  had  long  been  disused,  and  which  were  commonly 
regarded  as  superstitious  mummeries,  were  revived.  Paint- 
ings and  carvings,  which  had  escaped  the  fury  of  the  first 
generation  of  Protestants,  became  the  objects  of  a  respect 
such  as  to  many  seemed  idolatrous. 

No  part  of  the  system  of  the  old  church  had  been  more 
detested  by  the  Reformers  than  the  honor  paid  to  celibacy. 
They  held  that  the  doctrine  of  Rome  on  this  subject  had  been 
prophetically  condemned  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  as  a  doctrine 
of  devils ;  and  they  dwelt  much  on  the  crimes  and  scandals 
which  seemed  to  prove  the  justice  of  this  awful  denunciation. 
Luther  had  evinced  his  own  opinion  in  the  clearest  manner, 
by  espousing  a  nun.  Some  of  the  most  illustrious  bishops 
and  priests  who  had  died  by  fire  during  the  reign  of  Mary 
had  left  wives  and  children.  Now,  however,  it  began  to  be 
rumored  that  the  old  monastic  spirit  had  reappeared  in  the 
Church  of  England  ;  that  there  was  in  high  quarters  a  preju- 
dice against  married  priests ;  that  even  laymen,  who  called 
themselves  Protestants,  had  made  resolutions  of  celibacy 
which  almost  amounted  to  vows ;  nay,  that  a  minister  of  the 
established  religion  had  set  up  a  nunnery,  in  which  the  psalms 
were  chanted  at  midnight,  by  a  company  of  virgins  dedicated 
to  God.* 

*  Peckard's  Life  of  Ferrar.  The  Arminian  Nunnery,  or  a  Brief 
Description  of  the  late  erected  monastical  Place  called  the  Arminian 
Nunnery,  at  Little  Gidding,  in  Huntingdonshire,  1641. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  61 

Nor  was  this  all.  A  class  of  questions  as  to  which  the 
founders  of  the  Anglican  Church  and  the  first  generation  of 
Puritans  had  differed  little  or  not^t  all,  began  to  furnish  mat- 
ter for  fierce  disputes.  The  controversies  which  had  divided 
the  Protestant  body  in  its  infancy,  had  related  almost  exclu- 
sively to  church  government  and  to  ceremonies.  There  had 
been  no  serious  quarrel  between  the  contending  parties  on  points 
of  metaphysical  theology.  The  doctrines  held  by  the  chiefs  of 
the  hierarchy  touching  original  sin,  faith,  grace,  predestination, 
and  election,  were  those  which  are  popularly  called  Calvinistic. 
Towards  the  close  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  her  favorite  prelate, 
Archbishop  Whitgift,  drew  up,  in  concert  with  the  Bishop  of 
London  and  other  theologians,  the  celebrated  instrument  known 
by  the  name  of  the  Lambeth  articles.  In  that  instrument  the 
most  startling  of  the  Calvinistic  doctrines  are  affirmed  with  a 
distinctness  which  would  shock  many  who,  in  our  age,  are 
reputed  Calvinists.  One  clergyman,  who  took  the  opposite 
side,  and  spoke  harshly  of  Calvin,  was  arraigned  for  his  pre- 
sumption by  the>-JJniversity  of  Cambridge,  and  escaped  pun- 
ishment only  by  expressing  his  firm  belief  in  the  tenets  of 
reprobation  and  final  perseverance,  and  his  sorrow  for  the 
offence  which  he  had  given  to  pious  men  by  reflecting  on  the 
great  French  Reformer.  The  school  of  divinity,  of  which 
Hooker  was  the  chief,  occupies  a  middle  place  between  the 
school  of  Cranmer  and  the  school  of  Laud  ;  and  Hooker  has, 
in  modern  times,  been  claimed  by  the  Arminians  as  an  ally. 
Yet  Hooker  pronounced  Calvin  to  have  been  a  man  superior 
in  wisdom  to  any  other  divine  that  France  had  produced ;  a 
man  to  whom  thousands  were  indebted  for  the  knowledge  of 
divine  truth,  but  who  was  himself  indebted  to  God  alone. 
When  the  Arminian  controversy  arose  in  Holland,  the  Eng- 
lish government  and  the  English  Church  lent  strong  support  to 
the  Calvinistic  party ;  nor  is  the  English  name  altogether  free 
from  the  stain  which  has  been  left  on  that  party  by  the  impris- 
onment of  Grotius  and  the  judicial  murder  of  Barneveldt. 

But,  even  before  the  meeting  of  the  Dutch  synod,  that  part 
of  the  Anglican  clergy  which  was  peculiarly  hostile  to  the 
Calvinistic  church  government  and  to  the  Calvinistic  worship 
had  begun  to  regard  with  dislike  the  Calvinistic  metaphysics  ; 
and  this  feeling  was  very  naturally  strengthened  by  the  gross 
injustice,  insolence,  and  cruelty  of  the  party  which  was  pref- 
alent  at  Dort.  The  Arminian  doctrine,  a  doctrine  less  aus- 
terely logical  than  that  of  the  early  Reformers,  but  more 
VOL.  i.  6 


62  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

agreeable  to  the  popular  notions  of  the  divine  justice  and 
benevolence,  spread  fast  and  wide.  The  infection  soon 
reached  the  court.  Opinions  which,  at  the  time  of  the  acces- 
sion of  James,  no  clergyman  could  have  avowed  without 
imminent  risk  of  being  stripped  of  his  gown,  were  now  the 
best  title  to  preferment.  A  divine  of  that  age,  who  was  asked 
by  a  simple  country  gentleman  what  the  Arminians  held, 
answered,  with  as  much  truth  as  wit,  that  they  held  all  the 
best  bishoprics  and  deaneries  in  England. 

While  a  section  of  the  Anglican  clergy  quitted,  in  one 
direction,  the  position  which  they  had  originally  occupied,  a 
section  of  the  Puritan  body  departed,  in  a  direction  diametri- 
cally opposite,  from  the  principles  and  practices  of  their 
fathers.  The  persecution  which  the  separatists  had  under  • 
gone  had  been  severe  enough  to  irritate,  but  not  severe  enough 
to  destroy.  They  had  not  been  tamed  into  submission,  but 
baited  into  savageness  and  stubbornness.  After  the  fashion 
of  oppressed  sects,  they  mistook  their  own  vindictive  feelings 
for  emotions  of  piety,  encouraged  in  themselves  by  reading 
and  meditation  a  disposition  to  brood  over  their  wrongs,  and, 
when  they  had  worked  themselves  up  into  hating  their  ene- 
mies, imagined  that  they  were  only  hating  the  enemies  of 
Heaven.  In  the  New  Testament  there  was  little  indeed 
which,  even  when  perverted  by  the  most  disingenuous  ex- 
position, could  seem  to  countenance  the  indulgence  of  malev- 
olent passions.  But  the  Old  Testament  contained  the  history 
of  a  race  selected  by  God  to  be  witnesses  of  his  unity  and 
ministers  of  his  vengeance,  and  specially  commanded  by  him 
to  do  many  things  which,  if  done  without  his  special  com- 
mand, would  have  been  atrocious  crimes.  In  such  a  history 
it  was  not  difficult  for  fierce  and  gloomy  spirits  to  find  much 
that  might  be  distorted  to  suit  their  wishes.  The  extreme 
Puritans  therefore  began  to  feel  for  the  Old  Testament  a 
preference,  which,  perhaps,  they  did  not  distinctly  avow  even 
to  themselves ;  but  which  showed  itself  in  all  their  sentiments 
and  habits.  They  paid  to  the  Hebrew  language  a  respect 
which  they  refused  to  that  tongue  in  which  the  discourses  of 
Jesus  and  the  epistles  of  Paul  have  come  down  to  us.  They 
baptized  their  children  by  the  names,  not  of  Christian  saints, 
but  of  Hebrew  patriarchs  and  warriors.  In  defiance  of  the 
express  and  reiterated  declarations  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  they 
turned  the  weekly  festival  by  which  the  church  had,  from  the 
primitive  times,  commemorated  the  resurrection  of  her  Lord, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  63 

into  a  Jewish  Sabbath.  They  sought  for  principles  of  juris- 
prudence in  the  Mosaic  law,  and  for  precedents  to  guide  their 
ordinary  conduct  in  the  books  of  Judges  and  Kings.  Their 
thoughts  and  discourse  ran  much  on  acts  which  were  assuredly 
not  recorded  as  examples  for  our  irritation.  The  prophet  who 
hewed  in  pieces  a  captive  king,  the  rebel  general  who  gave  the 
blood  of  a  queen  to  the  dogs,  the  matron  who,  in  defiance  of 
plighted  faith,  and  of  the  laws  of  eastern  hospitality,  drove  the 
nail  into  the  brain  of  the  fugitive  ally  who  had  just  fed  at  her 
board,  and  who  was  sleeping  under  the  shadow  of  her  tent,  were 
proposed  as  models  to  Christians  suffering  under  the  tyranny  of 
princes  and  prelates.  Morals  and  manners  were  subjected  to  a 
code  resembling  that  of  the  synagogue,  when  the  synagogue  was 
in  its  worst  state.  The  dress,  the  deportment,  the  language,  the 
studies,  the  amusements  of  the  rigid  sect  were  regulated  on  prin- 
ciples resembling  those  of  the  Pharisees  who,  proud  of  their 
washed  hands  and  broad  phylacteries,  taunted  the  Redeemer 
as.  a  Sabbath-breaker  and  a  wine-bibber.  It  was  a  sin  to  hang 
garlands  on  a  Maypole,  to  drink  a  friend's  health,  to  fly  a 
hawk,  to  hunt  a  stag,  to  play  at  chess,  to  wear  lovelocks,  to  > 
put  starch  into  a  ruff",  to  touch  the  virginals,  to  read  the  Fairy 
Queen.  Rules  such  as  these,  rules  which  would  have  ap- 
peared insupportable  to  the  free  and  joyous  spirit  of  Luther, 
and  contemptible  to  the  serene  and  philosophical  intellect  of 
Zwingle,  threw  over  all  life  a  more  than  monastic  gloom. 
The  learning  and  eloquence  by  which  the  great  Reformers  had 
been  eminently  distinguished,  and  to  which  they  had  been, 
in  no  small  measure,  indebted  for  their  success,  were  regarded 
by  the  new  school  of  Protestants  with  suspicion,  if  not  with 
aversion.  Some  precisians  had  scruples  about  teaching  the 
Latin  grammar  because  the  names  of  Mars,  Bacchus,  and 
Apollo  occurred  in  it.  The  fine  arts  were  all  hut  proscribed 
The  solemn  peal  of  the  organ  was  superstitious.  The  light 
music  of  Ben  Jonson's  masques  was  dissolute.  Half  the  fine 
paintings  in  England  were  idolatrous,  and  the  other  half  in- 
decent. The  extreme  Puritan  was  at  once  known  from  other 
men  by  his  gait,  his  garb,  his  lank  hair,  ;he  sour  solemnity  of 
his  face,  the  upturned  white  of  his  eyes,  the  nasal  twang  with 
which  he  spoke,  and  above  all,  by  his  peculiar  dialect.  He 
employed,  on  every  occasion,  the  imagery  and  style  of  Scrip- 
ture. Hebraisms  violently  introduced  into  the  English  lan- 
guage, and  metaphors  borrowed  from  the  boldest  lyric  poetry 
of  a  remote  age  and  country,  and  applied  to  the  common 


64  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

concerns  of  English  life,  were  the  most  striking  peculiarities 
of  this  cant,  which  moved,  not  without  cause,  the  derision  both 
of  prelatists  and  libertines. 

Thus  the  political  and  religious  schism  which  had  originated 
in  the  sixteenth  century  was,  during  the  first  quarter  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  constantly  widening.  Theories  tending 
to  Turkish  despotism  were  in  fashion  at  Whitehall.  Theories 
tending  to  republicanism  were  in  favor  with  a  large  portion  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  The  violent  prelatists  who  were,  to 
a  man,  zealous  for  prerogative,  and  the  violent  Puritans  who 
were,  to  a  man,  zealous  for  the  privileges  of  parliament,  re- 
garded each  other  with  animosity  more  intense  than  that 
which,  in  the  preceding  generation,  had  existed  between 
Catholics  and  Protestants. 

While  the  minds  of  men  were  in  this  state,  the  country, 
after  a  peace  of  many  years,  at  length  engaged  in  a  war 
which  required  strenuous  exertions.  This  war  hastened  the 
approach  of  the  great  constitutional  crisis.  It  was  necessary 
that  the  king  should  have  a  large  military  force.  He  could 
not  have  such  a  force  without  money.  He  could  not  legally 
raise  money  without  the  consent  of  parliament.  It  followed, 
therefore,  that  he  must  either  administer  the  government  in 
conformity  with  the  sense  of  the  House  of  Commons,  or  must 
venture  on  such  a  violation  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the 
land,  as  had  been  unknown  during  several  centuries.  The 
Plantagenets  and  the  Tudors  had,  it  is  true,  occasionally  sup- 
plied a  deficiency  in  their  revenue  by  a  benevolence  or  a 
forced  loan  ;  but  these  expedients  were  always  of  a  temporary 
nature.  To  meet  the  regular  charge  of  a  long  war  by  regular 
taxation,  imposed  without  the  consent  of  the  estates  of  the 
realm,  was  a  course  which  Henry  the  Eighth  himself  would 
not  have  dared  to  take.  It  seemed,  therefore,  that  the  decisive 
hour  was  approaching,  and  that  the  English  parliament  would 
soon  either  share  the  fate  of  the  senntes  of  the  Continent,  or 
obtain  supreme  ascendency  in  the  state^S v>1 

Just  at  this  conjuncture  James  died.^  Charles  the  First  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne.  He  had  received  from  nature  a  far 
better  understanding,  a  far  stronger  will,  and  a  far  keener  and 
firmer  temper  than  his  father's.  He  had  inherited  his  father's 
political  theories,  and  was  much  more  disposed  than  his  father 
to  carry  them  into  practice.  He  was,  like  his  father,  a  zeal- 
ous Episcopalian.  He  was,  moreover,  what  his  father  had 
never  been,  a  zealous  Arminian,  and,  though  no  Papist,  liked 


HISTORY    CJ?    ENGLAND.  65 

a  Papist  much  better  than  a  Puritan.  It  would  be  unjust  to 
deny  that  Charles  had  some  of  the  qualities  of  a  good,  and 
even  of  a  great,  prince.  He  wrote  and  spoke,  not,  like  his 
father,  with  the  exactness  of  a  professor,  but  after  the  fashion 
of  intelligent  and  well-educated  gentlemen.  His  taste  in  lit- 
erature and  art  was  excellent,  his  manner  dignified,  though 
not  gracious,  his  domestic  life  without  blemish.  Faithless- 
ness was  the  chief  cause  of  his  disasters,  and  is  the  chief ' 
stain  on  his  memory.  He  was,  in  truth,  impelled  by  an 
incurable  propensity  to  dark  and  crooked  wayfe.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  his  conscience,  which,  on  occasions  of  little 
moment,  was  sufficiently  sensitive,  should  never  have  re- 
proached him  with  this  great  vice.  But  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  he  was  perfidious,  not  only  from  constitution  and 
from  habit,  but  also  on  principle.  He  seems  to  have  learned 
from  the  theologians  whom  he  most  esteemed,  that  between 
him  and  his  subjects  there  could  be  nothing  of  the  nature  of 
mutual  contract ;  that  he  could  not,  even  if  he  would,  divest 
himself  of  his  despotic  authority ;  and  that,  in  every  promise 
which  he  made,  there  was  an  implied  reservation  that  such 
promise  might  be  broken  in  case  of  necessity,  and  that  of  the 
necessity  he  was  the  sole  judge. 

And  now  began  that  hazardous  game  on  which  were  staked 
the  destinies  of  the  English  people.  It  was  played,  on  the 
side  of  the  House  of  Commons,  with  keenness,  but  with 
admirable  dexterity,  coolness,  and  perseverance.  Great  states- 
men, who  looked  far  behind  them  and  far  before  them,  were 
at  the  head  of  that  assembly.  They  were  resolved  to  place 
the  king  in  such  a  situation  that  he  must  either  conduct  the 
administration  in  conformity  with  the  wishes  of  his  parliament, 
or  make  outrageous  attacks  on  the  most  sacred  principles  of 
the  constitution.  They  accordingly  doled  out  supplies  to  him 
very  sparingly.  He  found  that  he  must  govern  either  in  har- 
mony with  the  House  of  Commons,  or  in  defiance  of  all  law. 
His  choice  was  soon  made.  He  dissolved  his  first  parliament, 
and  levied  taxes  by  his  own  authority.  He  convoked  a  second 
parliament,  and  found  it  more  intractable  than  the  first.  He 
again  resorted  to  the  expedient  of  dissolution,  raised  fresh 
taxes  without  any  show  of  legal  right,  and  threw  the  chiefs  of 
the  opposition  into  prison.  At  the  same  time,  a  new  griev- 
ance, which  the  peculiar  feelings  and  habits  of  the  English 
nation  made  insupportably  painful,  and  which  seemed  to  alJ 
6* 


66  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

disceining  men  to  be  of  fearful  augury,  excited  general  dis- 
content and  alarm.  Companies  of  soldiers  were  billetted  on 
the  people  ;  and  martial  law  was,  in  some  places,  substituted 
for  the  ancient  jurisprudence  of  the  realm. 

The  king  called  a  third  parliament,  and^soon  perceived 
that  the  opposition  was  stronger  and  fiercer  than  ever.  He 
now  determined  on  a  change  of  tactics.  Instead  of  opposing 
an  inflexible  resistance  to  the  demands  of  the  Commons,  he, 
after  much  altercation  and  many  evasions,  agreed  to  a  com- 
promise which,  if  he  had  faithfully  adhered  to  it,  would  have 
averted  a  long  series  of  calamities.  The  parliament  granted 
an  ample  supply.  The  king  ratified,  in  the  most  solemn  man- 
ner, that  celebrated  law  which  is  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Petition  of  Right,  and  which  is  the  second  great  charter  of  the 
liberties  of  England.  By  ratifying  that  law,  he  bound  himself 
never  again  to  raise  money  without  the  consent  of  the  Houses, 
never  again  to  imprison  any  person,  except  in  due  course  of 
law,  and  never  again  to  subject  his  people  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  courts  martial. 

The  day  on  which  the  royal  sanction  was,  after  many 
delays,  solemnly  given  to  this  great  act,  was  a  day  of  joy  and 
hope.  The  Commons,  who  crowded  the  bar  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  broke  forth  into  loud  acclamations  as  soon  as  the  clerk 
had  pronounced  the  ancient  form  of  words  by  which  our 
princes  have,  during  many  ages,  signified  their  assent  to  the 
wishes  of  the  estates  of  the  realm.  Those  acclamations  were 
reechoed  by  the  voice  of  the  capital  and  of  the  nation ;  but, 
within  three  weeks,  it  became  manifest  that  Charles  had  no 
intention  of  observing  the  compact  into  which  he  had  entered. 
The  supply  given  by  the  representatives  of  the  nation  was 
collected.  The  promise  by  which  that  supply  had  been  ob- 
tained was  broken.  A  violent  contest  followed.  The  parlia- 
ment was  dissolved  with  every"  mark  of  royal  displeasure. 
Some  of  the  most  distinguished  members  were  imprisoned ; 
and  one  of  them,  Sir  John  Eliot,  after  years  of  suffering,  died 
in  confinement. 

Charles,  however,  could  not  venture  to  raise,  by  his  own 
authority,  taxes  sufficient  for  carrying  on  war.  He  accord- 
ingly hastened  to  make  peace  wit:  his  neighbors,  and  thence- 
forth gave  his  Whole  mind  to  British  politics. 

Now  cornmenced  a  new  era.  Many  English  kings  had 
occasionally  committed  unconstitutional  ants  ;  but  none  had 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  67 

sver  systematically  attempted  to  make  himself  a  despot,  and 
io  reduce  the  parl.ament  to  a  nullity.  Such  was  the  end 
which  Charles  distinctly  proposed  to  himself.  From  March 
1629,  to  April,  1640,  the  Houses  were  not  convoked.  Never 
in  our  history,  had  there  been  an  interval  of  eleven  years  be- 
tween parliament  and  parliament.  Only  once  had  there  been 
an  interval  of  even  half  that  length.  This  fact  alone  is  suf- 
ficient to  refute  those  who  represent  Charles  as  having 
merely  trodden  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Plantagenets  and 
Tudors. 

It  is  proved,  by  the  testimony  of  the  king's  most  strenuous 
supporters,  that,  during  this  part  of  his  reign,  the  provisions  of 
the  Petition  of  Right  were  violated  by  him,  not  occasionally, 
but  constantly,  and  on  system ;  that  a  large  part  of  the  rev- 
enue was  raised  without  any  legal  authority ;  and  that  persons 
obnoxious  to  the  government  languished  for  years  in  prison, 
without  being  ever  called  upon  to  plead  before  any  tribunal. 

For  these  things,  history  must  hold  the  king  himself  chiefly 
responsible.  From  the  time  of  his  third  parliament,  he  was 
his  own  prime  minister.  Several  persons,  however,  whose 
temper  and  talents  were  suited  to  his  purposes,  were  at  the 
head  of  different  departments  of  the  administration. 

Thomas  Wentworth,  successively  created  Lord  Wentworth 
and  Earl  of  StrafTord,  a  man  of  groat  abilities,  eloquence,  and 
courage,  but  of  a  cruel  and  imperious  nature,  was  the  coun 
seller  most  trusted  in  political  and  military  affairs.  He  had 
been  one  of  the  most  distinguished  members  of  the  opposition, 
and  felt  towards  those  whom  he  had  deserted  that  peculiar 
malignity  which  has,  in  all  ages,  been  characteristic  of  apos- 
tates. He  perfectly  understood  the  feelings,  the  resources, 
and  the  policy,  of  the  party  to  which  he  had  lately  belonged, 
and  had  formed  a  vast  and  deeply-meditated  scheme,  which 
very  nearly  confounded  even  the  able  tactics  of  the  statesmen 
by  whom  the  House  of  Commons  had  been  directed.  To  this 
scheme,  in  his  confidential  correspondence,  he  gave  the  ex- 
pressive name  of  Thorough.  His  object  was  to  do  in  England 
all,  and  more  than  all,  that  Richelieu  was  doing  in  France ;  to 
make  Charles  a  monarch  as  absolute  as  any  on  the  Continent ; 
to  put  the  estates  and  the  personal  liberty  of  the  whole  people 
at  the  disposal  of  the  crown ;  to  deprive  the  courts  x>f  law  of 
ail  independent  authority,  even  in  ordinary  questions  of  civil 
right  between  man  and  man,  and  to  punish,  with  merciless 
rigor,  all  who  murmured  at  the  acts  of  the  government,  or 


68  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

who  applied,  even  in  the  most  decent  and  regular  manner,  to 
any  tribunal  for  relief  against  those  acts.* 

This  was  his  end ;  and  he  distinctly  saw  in  what  manner 
alone  this  end  could  be  attained.  There  is,  in  truth,  about  all 
his  notions,  a  clearness,  coherence,  and  precision,  which,  if  ho 
had  not  been  pursuing  an  object  pernicious  to  his  country  and 
to  his  kind,  would  have  justly  entitled  him  to  high^dmiration. 
He  saw  that  there  was  one  instrument,  and  only  one,  by  which 
his  vast  and  daring  projects  could  be  carried  into  execution. 
That  instrument  was  a  standing  army.  To  the  forming  of 
such  an  army,  therefore,  he  directed  all  the*  energy  of  his 
strong  mind.  In  Ireland,  where  he  was  viceroy,  he  actually 
succeeded  in  establishing  a  military  despotism,  not  only  over 
the  aboriginal  population,  but  also  over  the  English  colonists, 
and  was  able  to  boast  that,  in  that  island,  the  king  was  as 
absolute  as  any  prince  in  the  whole  world  could  be.  t 

The  ecclesiastical  administration  was,  in  the  mean  time, 
principally  directed  by  William  Laud,  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. Of  all  the  prelates  of  the  Anglican  Church,  Laud  had 
departed  farthest  from  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  and 
had  drawn  nearest  to  Rome.  His  theology  was  more  remote 
than  even  that  of  the  Dutch  Arminians  from  the  theology  of 
the  Calvinists.  His  passion  for  ceremonies,  his  reverence  for 
holidays,  vigils,  and  sacred  places,  his  ill-concealed  dislike  of 
the  marriage  of  ecclesiastics,  the  ardent  and  not  altogether 
disinterested  zeal  with  which  he  asserted  the  claims  of  the 
clergy  to  the  reverence  of  the  laity,  would  have  made  him 
an  object  of  aversion  to  the  Puritans,  even  if  he  had  used  only 
legal  and  gentle  means  for  the  attainment  of  his  ends.  But 
his  understanding  was  narrow,  and  his  commerce  with  the 
world  had  been  small.  He  was  by  nature  rash,  irritable,  quick 
to  feel  for  his  own  dignity,  slow  to  sympathize  with  the  suffer- 
ings of  others,  and  prone  to  the  error,  common  in  supersti- 
tious men,  of  mistaking  his  own  peevish  and  malignant  moods 

*  The  correspondence  of  Wentworth  seems  to  me  fully  to  bear  out 
what  I  have  said  in  the  text.  To  transcribe  all  the  passages  which 
have  led  me  to  the  conclusion  at  which  I  have  arrived,  would  be  im- 
possible ;  nor  would  it  be  easy  to  make  a  better  selection  than  has 
already  been  made  by  Mr.  Hallam.  I  may,  however,  direct  the 
attention  of  the  reader  particularly  to  the  very  able  paper  which 
Wentworth  drew  up  respecting  the  affairs  of  the  Palatinate.  The 
date  is  March  31,  1637. 

t  These  are  Wentworth's  own  words.  See  his  letter  to  Laud, 
dated  Dec.  16,  1634. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  69 

for  emotions  of  pious  zeal.  Under  his  direction  every  corner 
of  the  realm  was  subjected  to  a  constant  and  minute  inspec- 
tion. Every  little  congregation  of  separatists  was  tracked  out 
and  broken  up.  Even  the  devotions  of  private  families  could 
not  escape  the  vigilance  of  his  spies.  Such  fear  did  his  rigor 
inspire  that  the  deadly  hatred  of  the  Church,  which  festered 
in  innumerable  bo'soms,  was  generally  disguised  under  an  out- 
ward show  of  conformity.  On  the  very  eve  of  troubles,  fatal 
to  himself  and  to  his  order,  the  bishops  of  several  extensive 
dioceses  were  able  to  report  to  him  that  not  a  single  dissenter 
was  to  be  found  within  their  jurisdiction.* 

The  tribunals  afforded  no  protection  to  the  subject  against 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  that  period.  The  judges 
of  the  common  law,  holding  their  situations  during  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  king,  were  scandalously  obsequious.  Yet,  obsequi- 
ous as  they  were,  they  were  less  ready  and  efficient  instruments 
of  arbitrary  power  than  a  class  of  courts,  the  memory  of  which 
is  still,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  two  centuries,  held  in  deep 
abhorrence  by  the  nation.  Foremost  among  these  courts  in 
power  and  in  infamy  were  the  Star  Chamber  and  the  High 
Commission,  the  former  a  political,  the  latter  a  religious  inqui- 
sition. Neither  was  a  part  of  the  old  constitution  of  England 
The  Star  Chamber  had  been  remodelled,  and  the  High  Com- 
mission created  by  the  Tudors.  The  power  which  these 
boards  had  possessed  before  the  accession  of  Charles,  had 
been  extensive  and  formidable ;  but  was  small  indeed  when 
compared  with  that  which  they  now  usurped.  Guided  chiefly 
by  the  violent  spirit  of  the  primate,  and  freed  from  the  con- 
trol of  parliament,  they  displayed  a  rapacity,  a  violence,  a 
malignant  energy,  which  had  been  unknown  to  any  former 
age.  The  government  was  able,  through  their  instrumentality, 
to  fine,  imprison,  pillory,  and  mutilate  without  restraint.  A 
separate  council  which  sate  at  York,  under  the  presidency  of 
Wentworth,  was  armed,  in  defiance  of  law,  by  a  pure  act  of 
prerogative,  with  almost  boundless  power  over  the  northern 
counties.  All  these  tribunals  insulted  and  defied  the  authority 
of  Westminster  Hall,  and  daily  committed  excesses  which  the 
most  distinguished  royalists  have  warmly  condemned.  We 
are  informed  by  Clarendon  that  there  was  hardly  a  man  of 
note  in  the  realm,  who  had  not  personal  experience  of  the 
harshness  and  greediness  of  the  Star  Chamber,  that  the  High 

*  See  his  report  to  Charles  for  the  year  1639, 


70  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Commission  had  so  conducted  itself  that  it  had  scarce  a  friend 
left  in  the  kingdom,  and  that  the  tyranny  of  the  Council  of 
York  had  made  the  Great  Charter  a  dead  letter  to  the  north 
of  the  Trent. 

The  government  of  England  was  now,  in  all  points  bat  one, 
as  despotic  as  that  of  France.  But  that  one  point  was  all 
important.  There  was  still  no  standing  ^.rmy.  There  was, 
therefore,  no  security  that  the  whole  fabric  of  tyranny  might 
not  be  subverted  in  a  single  day.  And,  if  taxes  were  imposed 
by  the  royal  authority  for  the  support  of  an  army,  it  was  prob- 
able that  there  would  be  an  immediate  and  irresistible  explo- 
sion. This  was  the  difficulty  which  more  than  any  other 
perplexed  Wentworth.  The  Lord  Keeper  Finch,  in  concert 
with  other  lawyers  who  were  employed  by  the  government, 
recommended  an  expedient,  which  was  eagerly  adopted.  The 
ancient  princes  of  England,  as  they  called  on  the  inhabitants 
of  the  counties  near  Scotland  to  arm  and  array  themselves  for 
the  defence  of  the  border,  had  sometimes  called  on  the  mari- 
time counties  to  furnish  ships  for  the  defence  of  the  coast.  In 
the  room  of  ships  money  had  sometimes  been  accepted.  This 
old  practice  it  was  now  determined,  after  a  long  interval,  not 
only  to  revive,  but  to  extend.  Former  princes  had  raised  ship- 
money  only  in  time  of  war  ;  it  was  now  exacted  in  a  time  of 
profound  peace.  Former  princes,  even  in  the  most  perilous 
wars,  had  raised  ship-money  only  along  the  coasts ;  it  was 
now  exacted  from  the  inland  shires.  Former  princes  had 
raised  ship-money  only  for  the  maritime  defence  of  the  coun- 
try ;  it  was  now  exacted,  by  the  admission  of  the  royalists 
themselves,  with  the  object,  not  of  maintaining  a  navy,  but  of 
furnishing  the  king  wit11  supplies  which  might  be  increased  at 
his  discretion  to  any  amount,  and  expended  at  his  discretion 
for  any  purpose. 

The  whole  nation  was  alarmed  and  incensed.  John  Hamp- 
den,  an  opulent  and  well-born  gentleman  of  Buckinghamshire, 
highly  considered  in  his  own  neighborhood,  but  as  yet  little 
known  to  the  kingdom  generally,  had  the  courage  to  step  for- 
ward, to  confront  the  whole  po  ver  of  the  government,  and 
take  on  himself  the  cost  and  the  risk  of  disputing  the  preroga- 
tive to  which  the  king  laid  claim.  The  case  was  argued  be- 
fore the  judges  in  the  Exchequer  Chamber.  So  strong  were 
the  arguments  against  the  pretensions  of  the  crown  that,  de- 
pendent and  servile  as  the  judges  were,  the  majority  against 
Hampden  was  the  smallest  possible.  Still  there  was  a  ma- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  71 

jority.  The  interpreters  of  the  law  had  pronounced  that  one 
gieat  and  productive  tax  might  be  imposed  by  the  royal  au- 
thority. Wentworth  justly  observed  that  it  was  impossible  tc 
vindicate  their  judgment  except  by  reasons  directly  leading  to 
a  conclusion  which  they  had  not  ventured  to  draw.  If  money 
might  legally  be  raised  without  the  consent  of  parliament  for 
the  support  of  a  fleet,  it  was  not  easy  to  deny  that  money 
might,  without  consent  of  parliament,  be  legally  raised  for  th* 
support  of  an  army. 

The  decision  of  the  judges  increased  the  irritation  of  the 
people.  A  century  earlier,  irritation  less  serious'  would  have 
produced  a  general  rising.  But  discontent  did  not  now  so 
readily  as  in  former  ages  take  the  form  of  rebellion.  The  na- 
tion had  been  long  steadily  advancing  in  wealth  and  in  civili- 
zation. Since  the  great  northern  earls  took  up  arms  against 
Elizabeth  seventy  years  had  elapsed ;  and  during  those  sev- 
enty years  there  had  been  no  civil  war.  Never,  during  the 
whole  existence  of  the  English  nation,  had  so  long  a  period 
passed' without  intestine  hostilities.  Men  had  become  accus- 
tomed to  the  pursuits  of  peaceful  industry,  and,  exasperated 
as  they  were,  hesitated  long  before  they  drew  the  sword. 

This  was  the  conjuncture  at  which  the  liberties  of  our  coun- 
try were  in  the  greatest  peril.  The  opponents  of  the  govern- 
ment began  to  despair  of  the  destiny  of  their  country ;  and 
many  looked  to  the  American  wilderness  as  the  only  asylum 
in  which  they  could  enjoy  civil  and  spiritual  freedom.  There 
*  few  resolute  Puritans  who,  in  the  cause  of  their  religion, 
/eared  neither  the  rage  of  the  ocean  nor  the  hardships  of  un- 
civilized life,  neither  the  fp.  :gs  of  savage  beasts  nor  the  toma- 
hawks of  more  savage  .men,  had  built,  amidst  the  primeval 
forest,  villages  which  are  now  great  and  opulent  cities,  but 
which  have,  through  every  change,  retained  some  trace  of  the 
'-haracter  derived  from  their  founders.  The  government  re- 
garded these  infant  colonies  with  aversion,  and  attempted  vio- 
lently to  stop  the  stream  of  emigration,  but  could  not  prevent 
the  population  of  New  England  from  being  largely  recruited 
by  stout-hearted  and  God-fearing  men  from  every  part  of  the 
old  England.  And  now  Wentworth  exulted  in  the  near  pros- 
pect of  Thorough.  A  fe»v  years  might  probably  suffice  for  the 
execution  of  his  great  design.  If  strict  economy  were  ob- 
served, if  all  collision  with  foreign  powers  were  carefully 
avoided,  the  debts  of  the  crown  would  be  cleared  off;  there 
would  be  funds  available  for  the  support  of  a  large  militnr  v 


72  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

force  ;  and  that  force  would  soon  break  the  refractory  spirit 
of  the  nation.  . 

At  this  crisis  an  act  of  insane  bigotry  suddenly  changed 
the  whole  face  of  public  affairs.  Had  -  the  king  been  wise 
he  would  have  pursued  a  cautious  and  soothing  policy  towards 
Scotland  till  he  was  master  in  the  south.  For  Scotland  was 
of  all  his  kingdoms  that  in  which  there  was  the  greatest  risk 
that  a  spark  might  produce  a  flame,  and  that  a  flame  might 
become  a  conflagration.  Constitutional  opposition,  indeed, 
such  as  he  had  encountered  at  Westminster,  he  had  not  to 
apprehend  at  Edinburgh.  The  parliament  of  his  northern 
kingdom  was  a  very  different  body  from  that  which  bore  the 
same  name  in  England.  It  was  ill  constituted  ;  it  was  little 
considered  ;  and  it  had  never  imposed  any  serious  restraint 
on  any  of  his  predecessors,  The  three  estates  sate  in  one 
house.  The  commissioners  of  the  burghs  were  considered 
merely  as  retainers  of  the  great  nobles.  No  act  could  be 
introduced  till  it  had  been  approved  by  the  Lords  of  Articles, 
a  committee  which  was  really,  though  not  in  form,  nominated 
by  the  crown.  But,  though  the  Scottish  parliament  was 
obsequibus,  the  Scottish  people  had  always  been  singularly 
turbulent  and  ungovernable.  They  had  butchered  their  first 
James  in  his  bed-chamber :  they  had  repeatedly  arrayed 
themselves  in  arms  against  James  the  Second  :  they  had  slain 
James  the  Third  on  the  field  of  battle  :  their  disobedience 
had  broken  the  heart  of  James  the  Fifth  :  they  had  deposed 
and  imprisoned  Mary :  they  had  led  her  son  captive  :  and 
their  temper  was  still  as  intractable  as  ever.  Their  habits 
were  rude  and  martial.  All  along  the  southern  border, 
and  all  along  the  line  between  the  highlands  and  the  lowlands, 
raged  an  incessant  predatory  war.  In  every  part  of  the 
country  men  were  accustomed  to  redress  their  wrongs  by  the 
strong  hand.  Whatever  loyalty  the  nation  had  anciently  felt 
to  the  royal  house  had  cooled  during  the  long  absence  of  two 
sovereigns.  The  supreme  influence  over  the  public  mind 
was  divided  between  two  classes  of  malcontents,  the  lords 
of  the  soil  and  the  preachers ;  lords  animated  by  the  same 
Spirit  which  had  often  impelled  the  old  Douglasses  to  withstand 
the  old  Stuarts,  and  preachers  who  had  inherited  the  repub- 
lican opinions  and  the  unconquerable  spirit  of  Knox.  Both 
the  national  and  religious  feelings  of  the  population  had  been 
wounded.  All  orders  of  men  complained  that  their  country, 
that  country  which  had,  with  so  much  glory,  defended  her 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  73 

independence  against  the  ablest  and  bravest  Plantagenets,  had, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  her  native  princes,  become  in 
effect,  though  not  in  name,  a  province  of  England.  In  no 
part  of  Europe  had  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  and  discipline 
taken  so  strong  a  hold  on  the  public  mind.  The  Church  of 
Rome  was  regarded  by  the  great  body  of  the  people  with  a 
hatred  which  might  justly  be  called  ferocious ;  and  the  Church 
of  England,  which  seemed  to  be  every  day  becoming  more 
and  more  like  the  Church  of  Rome,  was  an  object  of  scarcely 
less  aversion. 

The  government  had  long  wished  to  extend  the  Anglican 
system  over  the  whole  island,  and  had  already,  with  this 
view,  made  several  changes  highly  distasteful  to  every  Pres- 
byterian. One  innovation,  however,  the  most  hazardous  of 
all,  because  it  was  directly  cognizable  by  the  senses  of  the 
common  people,  had  not  yet  been  attempted.  The  public 
worship  of  God  was  still  conducted  in  the  manner  acceptable 
to  the  nation.  Now,  however,  Charles  and  Laud  determined 
to  force  on  the  Scots  the  English  liturgy,  or  rather  a  liturgy 
which,  wherever  it  differed  from  that  of  England,  differed,  in 
the  judgment  of  all  rigid  Protestants,  for  the  worse. 

To  this  step,  taken  in  the  mere  wantonness  of  tyranny,  and 
in  criminal  ignorance  or  more  criminal  contempt  of  public 
feeling,  our  country  owes  her  freedom.  The  first  per- 
formance of  the  foreign  ceremonies  produced  a  riot.  The 
riot  rapidly  became  a  revolution.  Ambition,  patriotism, 
fanaticism  were  mingled  in  one  headlong  torrent.  The  whole 
nation  was  in  arms.  The  power  of  England  was  indeed,  as 
appeared  some  years  later,  sufficient  to  coerce  Scotland  :  but 
a  large  part  of  the  English  people  sympathized  with  the 
religious  feelings  of  the  insurgents  ;  and  many  Englishmen 
who  had  no  scruple  about  antiphonies  and  genuflections,  altars 
and  surplices,  saw  with  pleasure  the  progress  of  a  rebellion 
which  seemed  likely  to  confound  the  arbitrary  projects  of 
the  court,  and  to  make  the  calling  of  a  parliament  neces- 
sary. 

For  the  senseless  freak  which  had  produced  these  effects 
Wentworth  is  not  responsible.*  It  had,  in  fact,  thrown  all 
his  plans  into  confusion.  To  counsel  submission,  however, 
was  not  in  his  nature.  An  attempt  was  made  to  put  down 

*  See  his  letter  to  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  dated  July  30, 
1638. 

v«L.  I  7 


74  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  insurrection  by  the  sword.  But  the  king's  military  mean* 
and  military  talents  was  unequal  to  the  task.  To  impose 
fresh  taxes  on  England  in  defiance  of  law  would,  at  this 
conjuncture,  have  been  madness.  No  resource  was  left  but  a 
parliament ;  and  in  the  spring  of  1640  a  parliament  was 
convoked. 

The  nation  had  been  put  into  good  humor  by  the  prospect 
of  seeing  constitutional  government  restored,  and  grievances 
redressed.  The  new  House  of  Commons  was  more  tem- 
perate and  more  respectful  to  the  throne  than  any  which  had 
sate  since  the  death  of  Elizabeth.  The  moderation  of  this 
iissembly  has  been  highly  extolled  by  the  most  distinguished 
royalists,  and  seems  to  have  caused  no  small  vexation  and 
ilisappointment  to  the  chiefs  of  the  opposition  ;  but  it  was  the 
uniform  practice  of  Charles,  a  practice  equally  impolitic  and 
ungenerous,  to  refuse  all  compliance  with  the  desires  of  his 
people,  till  those  desires  were  expressed  in  a  menacing  tone. 
,\s  soon  as  the  Commons  showed  a  disposition  to  take  into 
consideration  the  grievances  under  which  the  country  had 
suffered  during  eleven  years,  the  king  dissolved  the  parliament 
with  every  mark  of  displeasure. 

Between  the  dissolution  of  this  short-lived  assembly,  and 
the  meeting  of  that  ever-memorable  body,  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Long  Parliament,  intervened  a  few  months, 
during  which  the  yoke  was  pressed  down  more  severely  than 
ever  on  the  nation,  while  the  spirit  of  the  nation  rose  up  more 
angrily  than  ever  against  the  yoke.  Members  of  the  House 
of  Commons  were  questioned  by  the  privy  council  touching 
their  parliamentary  conduct,  and  thrown  into  prison  for 
refusing  to  reply.  Ship-money  was  levied  with  increased 
rigor.  The  lord  mayor  and  the  sheriffs  of  London  were 
threatened  with  imprisonment  for  remissness  in  collecting  the 
payments.  Soldiers  were  enlisted  by  force.  Money  for  their 
support  was  exacted  from  their  counties.  Torture,  which  had 
always  been  illegal,  and  which  had  recently  been  declared 
illegal  even  by  the  servile  judges  of  that  age,  was  inflicted 
for  the  last  time  in  England  in  the  month  of  May,  1640. 

Every  thing  now  depended  on  the  event  of  the  king's 
military  operations  against  the  Scots.  Among  his  troops 
there  was  little  of  that  feeling  which  separates  professional 
soldiers  from  the  mass  of  the  nation,  and  attaches  them  to 
their  leaders.  His  army,  composed  for  the  most  part  of 
recruits  who  regretted  the  plough  from  which  they  had  beeo 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  75 

riolently  taken,  and  who  were  imbued  with  the  religious  and 
political  sentiments  then  prevalent  throughout  the  country, 
were  more  formidable  to  their  chiefs  than  to  the  enemy. 
The  Scots,  encouraged  by  the  heads  of  the  English  op- 
position, and  feebly  resisted  by  the  English  troops,  marched 
across  the  Tweed  and  the  Tyne,  and  encamped  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Yorkshire.  And  now  the  murmurs  of  discontent 
swelled  into  an  uproar  by  which  all  spirits  save  one  were 
overawed.  But  the  voice  of  Strafford  was  still  for  Thorough  ; 
and  he,  even  in  this  extremity,  showed  a  nature  so  cruel 
and  despotic,  that  his  own  soldiers  were  ready  to  tear  him  in 
pieces. 

There  was  yet  one  last  expedient  which,  as  the  king  flat- 
tered himself,  might  save  him  from  the  misery  of  facing 
another  House  of  Commons.  To  the  House  of  Lords  he 
wa>  less  averse.  The  bishops  were  devoted  to  him ;  and, 
though  the  temporal  peers  were  generally  dissatisfied  with 
his  administration,  they  were,  as  a  class,  so  deeply  interested 
in  the  maintenance  of  order,  and  in  the  stability  of  ancient 
institutions,  that  they  were  not  likely  to  call  for  extensive 
reforms.  Departing  from  the  uninterrupted  practice  of  cen- 
turies, he  called  a  great  council  consisting  of  peers  alone. 
But  the  lords  were  too  prudent  to  assume  the  unconstitutional 
functions  with  which  he  wished  to  invest  them.  Without 
money,  without  credit,  without  authority  even  in  his  own 
camp,  he  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  necessity.  The  Houses 
were  convoked ;  and  the  elections  proved  that,  since  the 
spring,  the  distrust  and  hatred  with  which  the  government  was 
regarded  had  made  fearful  progress. 

In  November,  1640,  met  that  renowned  parliament  which, 
in  spite  of  many  errors  and  disasters,  is  justly  entitled  to  the 
reverence  and  gratitude  of  all  who,,  in  any  part  of  the  world, 
enjoy  the  blessings  of  constitutional  government. 

During  the  year  which  followed,  no  very  important  division 
of  opinion  appeared  in  the  Houses.  The  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical administration  had,  through  a  period  of  nearly  twelve 
years,  been  so  oppressive  and  so  unconstitutional  that  even 
those  classes  of  which  the  inclinations  are  generally  on  the 
side  of  order  and  authority  were  eager  to  promote  popular 
reforms,  and  to  bring  the  instruments  of  tyranny  to  justice.  It 
was  enacted  that  no  interval  of  more  than  three  years  should 
ever  elapse  between  parliament  and  parliament,  and  that,  if 
writs  under  the  Great  Seal  were  not  issued  at  the  proper  time, 


76  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  returning  officers  should,  without  such  writs,  call  the  con- 
stituent bodies  together  for  the  choice  of  representatives. 
The  Star  Chamber,  the  High  Commission,  the  Council  of 
York,  were  swept  away.  Men,  who,  after  suffering  cruel 
mutilations,  had  been  confined  in  remote  dungeons,  regained 
their  liberty.  On  the  chief  ministers  of  the  crown  the  ven- 
geance of  the  nation  was  unsparingly  wreaked.  The  lord 
keeper,  the  primate,  the  lord  lieutenant,  were  impeached. 
Finch  saved  himself  by  flight.  Laud  was  flung  into  the 
Tower.  Strafford  was  impeached,  and  at  length  put  to  death 
by  Act  of  Attainder.  On  the  same  day  on  which  this  act 
passed,  the  king  gave  his  assent  to  a  law  by  which  he  bound 
himself  not  to  adjourn,  prorogue,  or  dissolve  the  existing  par- 
liament without  its  own  (consent. 

After  ten  months  of  assiduous  toil,  the  Houses,  in  Septem- 
ber, 1641,  adjourned  for  a  short  vacation,  and  the  king  visited 
Scotland.  He  with  difficulty  pacified  that  kingdom  by  con- 
senting not  only  to  relinquish  his  plans  of  ecclesiastical  re- 
form, but  even  to  pass,  with  a  very  bad  grace,  an  act  declaring 
that  episcopacy  was  contrary  to  the  word  of  God. 

The  recess  of  the  English  parliament  lasted  six  weeks.  The 
day  on  which  the  Houses  met  again  is  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable epochs  in  our  history.  From  that  day  dates  the 
corporate  existence  of  the  two  great  parties  which  have  ever 
since  alternately  governed  the  country.  In  one  sense,  indeed, 
the  distinction  which  then  became  obvious  had  always  ex- 
isted, and  always  must  exist.  For  it  has  its  origin  in  diversi- 
ties of  temper,  of  understanding,  and  of  interest,  which  are 
found  in  all  societies,  and  which  will  be  found  till  the  human 
mind  ceases  to  be  drawn  in  opposite  directions  by  the  charm 
of  habit,  and  by  the  charm  of  novelty.  Not  only  in  politics, 
but  in  literature,  in  art,  in  science,  in  surgery"  and  mechanics, 
in  navigation  and  agriculture,  nay,  even  in  mathematics,  we 
find  this  distinction.  Every  where  there  is  a  class  of  men 
who  cling  with  fondness  to  whatever  is  ancient,  and  who,  even 
when  convinced  by  overpowering  reasons,  that  innovation 
would  be  beneficial,  consent  to  it  with  many  misgivings  and 
forebodings.  We  find  also  every  where  another  class  of  men, 
sanguine  in  hope,  bold  in  speculation,  always  piessing  for- 
ward, quick  to  discern  the  imperfections  of  whatever  exists, 
disposed  to  think  lightly  of  the  risks  and  inconveniences 
which  attend  improvements,  and  disposed  to  give  every  change 
credit  for  being  an  improvement.  In  the  sentiments  of  both 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  77 

classes  there  is  something  to  approve.  But  of  both  the  best 
specimens  will  be  found  not  far  from  the  common  frontier. 
The  extreme  section  of  one  class  consists  of  bigoted  dotards : 
the  extreme  section  of  the  other  consists  of  shallow  and  reck- 
less empirics. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  our  very  first  parliaments 
might  have  been  discerned  a  body  of  members  anxious  to 
preserve,  and  a  body  eager  to  reform.  But,  while  the  sessions 
of  the  legislature  were  short,  these  bodies  did  not  take  definite 
and  permanent  forms,  array  themselves  under  recognized 
leaders,  or  assume  distinguishing  names,  badges,  and  war 
cries.  During  the  first  months  of  the  Long  Parliament  the 
indignation  excited  by  many  years  of  lawless  oppression  was 
so  strong  and  general,  that  the  House  of  Commons  acted  as 
one  man.  Abuse  after  abuse  disappeared  without  a  struggle. 
If  a  small  minority  of  the  representative  body  wished  to  re- 
tain the  Star  Chamber  and  the  High  Commission,  that  minor- 
ity, overawed  by  the  enthusiasm  and  by  the  numerical 
superiority  of  the  reformers,  contented  itself  with  secretly 
regretting  institutions  which  could  not,  with  any  hope  of  suc- 
cess, be  openly  defended.  At  a  later  period  the  royalists 
found  it  convenient  to  antedate  the  separation  between  them- 
selves and  their  opponents,  and  to  attribute  the  act  which  re- 
strained the  king  from  dissolving  or  proroguing  the  parliament, 
the  Triennial  Act,  the  impeachment  of  the  ministers,  and  the 
attainder  of  StrafFord,  to  the  faction  which  afterwards  made 
war  on  the  king.  But  no  artifice  could  be  more  disingenuous. 
Every  one  of  those  strong  measures  was  actively  promoted 
by  the  men  who  were  afterwards  foremost  among  the  Cava- 
liers. No  republican  spoke  of  the  long  misgovernment  of 
Charles  more  severely  than  Colepepper.  The  most  remark- 
able speech  in  favor  of  the  Triennial  Bill  was  made  by  Digby. 
The  impeachment  of  the  lord  keeper  was  moved  by  Falkland. 
The  demand  that  the  lord  lieutenant  should  be  kept  close 
prisoner  was  made  at  the  bar  of  the  Lords  by  Hyde.  Not 
till  the  law  attainting  StrafFord  was  proposed  did  the  signs  of 
disunion  become  visible.  Even  against  that  law,  a  law  which 
nothing  but  extreme  necessity  could  justify,  only  about  sixty 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons  voted.  It  is  certain  that 
Hyde  was  not  in  tr  e  minority,  and  that  Falkland  not  only 
voted  with  the  majority,  but  spoke  strongly  for  the  bill.  Even 
the  few  who  entertained  a  scruple  about  inflicting  death  by 
a  retrospective  enactment  thought  it  necessary  to  express 
7  * 


"8  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  utmost  abhorrence  of  Stratford's  character  and  idminis 
tration. 

But  under  this  apparent  concord  a  great  schism  was  latent 
and  when,  in  October,  1641,  the  parliament  reassembled  aftei 
a  short  recess,  two  hostile  parties,  essentially  the  same  with 
those  which,  under  different  names,  have  ever  since  con- 
tended, and  are  still  contending,  for  the  direction  of  public 
affairs,  appeared  confronting  each  other.  During  some  years 
they  were  designated  as  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads.  They 
were  subsequently  called  Tories  and  Whigs ;  nor  does  it 
seem  that  these  appellations  are  likely  soon  to  become 
obsolete. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  compose  a  lampoon  or  a  pane- 
gyric on  either  of  these  renowned  factions.  For  no  man  not 
utterly  destitute  of  judgment  and  candor  will  deny  that  there 
are  many  deep  stains  on  the  fame  of  the  party  to  which  he 
belongs,  or  that  the  party  to  which  he  is  opposed  may  justly 
boast  of  many  illustrious  names,  of  many  heroic  actions,  and 
of  many  great  services  rendered  to  the  state.  The  truth  is 
that,  though  both  parties  have  often  seriously  erred,  England 
could  have  spared  neither.  If,  in  her  institutions,  freedom 
and  order,  the  advantages  arising  from  innovation  and  the 
advantages  arising  from  prescription,  have  been  combined  to 
an  extent  elsewhere  unknown,  we  may  attribute  this  happy 
peculiarity  to  the  strenuous  conflicts  and  alternate  victories 
of  two  rival  confederacies  of  statesmen,  a  confederacy  zealous 
for  authority  and  antiquity,  and  a  confederacy  zealous  for 
liberty  and  progress. 

It  ought  to  be  remembered  that  the  difference  between  the 
two  great  sections  of  English  politicians  has  always  been  a 
difference  rather  of  degree  than  of  principle.  There  were 
certain  limits  on  the  right  and  on  the  left,  which  were  very 
rarely  overstepped.  A  few  enthusiasts  on  one  side  were  ready 
to  lay  all  our  laws  and  franchises  at  the  feet  of  our  kings.  A 
few  enthusiasts  on  the  other  side  were  bent  on  pursuing, 
through  endless  civil  troubles,  their  darling  phantom  of  a 
republic.  But  the  great  majority  of  those  who  fought  for  the 
crown  were  averse  to  despotism ;  and  the  great  majority  of 
the  champions  of  popular  rights  were  averse  to  anarchy. 
Twice,  in  the  course  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  two  par- 
ties suspended  their  dissensions,  and  united  their  strength  in  a 
common  cause.  Their  first  coalition  restored  hereditary  mon- 
archy. Their  second  coalition  rescued  constitutional  freedom 


HISTORY    i/F    ENGLAND.  79 

It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  these  two  parties  have  never  been 
the  whole  nation,  nay,  that  they  have  never,  taken  togetner, 
made  up  a  majority  of  the  nation.  Between  them  has  always 
been  a  great  mass,  which  has  not  steadfastly  adhered  to  either, 
which  has  sometimes  remained  Jnertly  neutral,  and  has  some- 
times oscillated  to  and  fro.  That  mass  has  more  than  once 
passed,  in  a  few  years,  from  one  extreme  to  the  other,  and 
back  again.  Sometimes  it  has  changed  sides,  merely  because 
it  was  tired  of  supporting  the  same  men,  sometinaes  because 
it  was  dismayed  by  its  own  excesses,  sometimes  because  it  had 
expected  impossibilities,  and  had  been  disappointed.  But, 
whenever  it  has  leaned  with  its  whole  weight  in  either  direc- 
tion, resistance  has,  for  the  time,  been  impossible. 

When  the  rival  parties  first  appeared  in  a  distinct  form,  they 
seemed  to  be  not  unequally  matched.  On  the  side  of  the  gov- 
ernment was  a  large  majority  of  the  nobles,  and  of  those  op- 
ulent and  well-descended  gentlemen  to  whom  nothing  was 
wanting  of  nobility  but  the  name.  These,  with  the  depend- 
ents whose  support  they  could  command,  were  no  small  power 
in  the  state.  On  the  same  side  were  the  great  body  of  the 
clergy,  both  the  universities,  and  all  those  laymen  who  were 
strongly  attached  to  episcopal  government  and  to  the  Anglican 
ritual.  These  respectable  classes  found  themselves  in  the 
company  of  some  allies  much  less  decorous  than  themselves. 
The  Puritan  austerity  drove  to  the  king's  faction  all  who  made 
pleasure  their  business,  who  affected  gallantry,  splendor  of 
dress,  or  taste  in  the  lighter  arts.  With  these  went  all  who 
live  by  amusing  the  leisure  of  others,  from  the  painter  and  the 
comic  poet,  down  to  the  rope-dancer  and  the  Merry  Andrew. 
For  these  artists  well  knew  that  they  might  thrive  under  a 
superb  and  luxurious  despotism,  but  must  starve  under  the 
rigid  rule  of  the  precisians.  In  the  same  interest  were  the 
Roman  Catholics  to  a  man.  The  queen,  a  daughter  of  France, 
was  of  their  own  faith.  Her  husband  was  known  to  be 
strongly  attached  to  her,  and  not  a  little  in  awe  of  her. 
.Though  undoubtedly  a  Protestant  on  conviction,  he  regarded 
the  professors  of  the  old  religion  with  no  ill  will,  and  would 
gladly  have  granted  theni  a  much  larger  toleration  than  he  was 
disposed  to  concede  to  the  Presbyterians.  If  the  opposition 
obtained  the  mastery,  it  was  probable  that  the  sanguinary  laws 
enacted  against  Papists,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  would  be  se- 
verely enforced.  The  Roman  Catholics  were  therefore  induced 
by  the  strongest  motives  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  court. 


8U  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

They  in  general  acted  with  a  caution  which  brought  on  then) 
the  reproach  of  cowardice  and  lukewarmness ;  but  it  is  prob- 
able that,  in  maintaining  great  reserve,  they  consulted  the 
king's  interest  as  well  as  their  own.  It  was  not  for  his  service 
that  they  should  be  conspicuous  among  his  friends. 

The  main  strength  of  the  opposition  lay  among  the  small 
freeholders  in  the  country,  and  among  the  merchants  and 
shopkeepers  of  the  towns.  But  these  were  headed  by  a 
formidable  minority  of  the  aristocracy,  a  minority  which 
included 'the  rich  and  powerful  Earls  of  Northumberland, 
Bedford,  Warwick,  Stamford,  and  Essex,  and  several  other 
lords  of  great  wealth  and  influence.  In  the  same  ranks  were 
found  the  whole  body  of  Protestant  Nonconformists,  and  most 
of  those  members  of  the  Established  Church  who  still  adhered 
to  the  Calvinistic  opinions  which,  forty  years  before,  had  been 
generally  held  by  the  prelates  and  clergy.  The  municipal 
corporations  took,  with  few  exceptions,  the  same  side.  In  the 
House  of  Commons  the  opposition  preponderated,  but  not  very 
decidedly. 

Neither  party  wanted  strong  arguments  for  the  measures 
which  it  was  disposed  to  adopt.  The  reasonings  of  the  most 
enlightened  royalists  may  be  summed  up  thus :  "  It  is  true 
that  great  abuses  have  existed  ;  but  they  have  been  redressed. 
It  is  true  that  precious  rights  have  been  invaded ;  but  they 
have  been  vindicated  and  surrounded  with  new  securities. 
The* sittings  of  the  estates  of  the  realm  have  been,  in  defiance 
of  all  precedent  and  of  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  inter- 
mitted during  eleven  years ;  but  it  has  now  been  provided  that 
henceforth  three  years  shall  never  elapse  without  a  parliament. 
The  Star  Chamber,  the  High  Commission,  the  Council  of 
York,  oppressed  and  plundered  us ;  but  those  hateful  courts 
have  now  ceased  to  exist.  The  lord  lieutenant  aimed  at 
establishing  military  despotism ;  but  he  has  answered  for  his 
treason  with  his  head.  The  primate  tainted  our  worship  with 
Popish  rites,  and  punished  our  scruples  with  Popish  cruelty  ; 
but  he  is  awaiting  in  the  Tower  the  judgment  of  his  peers. 
The  lord  keeper  sanctioned  a  plan  by  which  the  property  of 
every  man  in  England  was  placed  at  the  mercy  of  the  crown  ; 
but  he  has  been  disgraced,  ruined,  and  compelled  to  take 
refuge  in  a  foreign  land.  The  ministers  of  tyranny  have 
expiated  their  crimes.  The  victims  of  tyranny  have  been 
compensated  for  their  sufferings.  Under  such  circumstances, 
it  would  be  most  unwise  to  persevere  in  that  course  which  was 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  81 

justifiable  and  necessary  when  we  first  met,  after  a  long  inter- 
val, and  found  the  whole  administration  one  mass  of  abuses. 
It  is  time  to  take  heed  that  we  do  not  so  pursue  our  victory 
over  despotism  as  to  run  into  anarchy.  It  was  not  in  OUT 
power  to  overturn  the  bad  institutions  which  lately  afflicted  our 
country,  without  shocks  which  have  loosened  the  foundations 
of  government.  Now  that  those  institutions  have  fallen,  we 
must  hasten  to  prop  the  edifice  which  it  was  lately  our  duty  to 
batter.  Henceforth  it  will  be  our  wisdom  to  look  with  jealousy 
on  schemes  of  innovation,  and  to  guard  from  encroachment  all 
the  prerogatives  with  which  the  law  has,  for  the  public  good, 
armed  the»sovereign." 

Such  were  the  views  of  those  men  of  whom  the  excellent 
Falkland  may  be  regarded  as  the  leader.  It  was  contended, 
on  the  other  side,  with  not  less  force,  by  men  of  not  less 
ability  and  virtue,  that  the  safety  which  the  liberties  of  the 
English  people  enjoyed  was  rather  apparent  than  real,  and 
that  the  arbitrary  projects  of  the  court  would  be  resumed  as 
soon  as  the  vigilance  of  the  Commons  was  relaxed.  True  it 
was,  —  such  was  the  reasoning  of  Pym,  of  Hollis,  and  of 
Hampden,  —  that  many  good  laws  had  been  passed ;  but,  if 
good  laws  had  been  sufficient  to  restrain  the  king,  his  subjects 
would  have  had  little  reason  ever  to  complain  of  his  adminis- 
tration. The  recent  statutes  were  surely  not  of  more  authority 
than  the  Great  Charter  or  the  Petition  of  Right.  Yet  neither 
the  Great  Charter,  hallowed  by  the  veneration  of  four  centu- 
ries, nor  the  Petition  of  Right,  sanctioned,  after  mature 
reflection,  and  for  valuable  consideration,  by  Charles  himself, 
had  been  found  effectual  for  the  protection  of  the  people.  If 
once  the  check  of  fear  were  withdrawn,  if  once  the  spirit  of 
opposition  were  suffered  to  slumber,  all  the  securities  for 
English  freedom  resolved  themselves  into  a  single  one,  the 
royal  word ;  and  it  had  been  proved  by  a  long  and  severe 
experience  that  the  royal  word  could  not  be  trusted. 

The  two  parties  were  still  regarding  each  other  with  cau- 
tious hostility,  and  had  not  yet  measured  their  strength,  when 
news  arrived  which  inflamed  the  passions  and  confirmed  the 
opinions  of  both.  The  great  chieftains  of  Ulster  who,  at  the 
time  of  the  accession  of  James,  had,  after  a  long  -struggle, 
submitted  to  the  royal  authority,  had  not  long  brooked  the 
humiliation  of  dependence.  They  had  conspired  against  the 
English  government,  and  had  been  attainted  of  treason.  Their 
immense  domains  had  been  forfeited  to  the  crown,  and  had 

7* 


82  HISTORY    CF    ENGLAND. 

soon  been  peopled  by  thousands  of  English  and  Scotch  env- 
grants.  The  new  settlers  were,  in  civilization  and  intelligence, 
far  superior  to  the  native  population,  and  sometimes  abused 
their  superiority.  The  animosity  produced  by  difference  of 
race  was  increased  by  difference  of  religion.  Under  the  iron 
rule  of  Wentworth,  scarcely  a  murmur  was  heard  :  but,  when 
that  strong  pressure  was  withdrawn,  when  Scotland  had  set 
the  example  of  successful  resistance,  when  England  was  dis- 
tracted by  internal  quarrels,  the  smothered  rage  of  the  Irish 
broke  forth  into  acts  of  fearful  violence.  On  a  sudden,  the 
aboriginal  population  rose  on  the  colonists.  A  war  to  which 
national  and  theological  hatred  gave  a  character  of  peculiar 
ferocity,  desolated  Ulster,  and  spread  to  the  neighboring  prov- 
inces. The  castle  of  Dublin  was  scarcely  thought  secure. 
Every  post  brought  to  London  exaggerated  accounts  of  out- 
rages which,  without  any  exaggeration,  were  sufficient  to  move 
pity  and  horror.  These  evil  tidings  roused  to  the  height  the 
zeal  of  both  the  great  parties  which  were  marshalled  against 
each  other  at  Westminster.  The  royalists  maintained  that  it 
was  the  first  duty  of  every  good  Englishman  and  Protestant,  at 
such  a  crisis,  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  sovereign.  To 
the  opposition  it  seemed  that  there  were  now  stronger  reasons 
than  ever  for  thwarting  and  restraining  him.  That  the  com- 
monwealth was  in  danger  was  undoubtedly  a  good  reason  for 
giving  large  powers  to  a  trustworthy  magistrate  :  but  it  was  a 
good  reason  -for  taking  away  powers  from  a  magistrate  who 
was  at  heart  a  public  enemy.  To  raise  a  great  army  had  al- 
ways been  the  king's  first  object.  A  great  army  must  now  be 
raised.  It  was  to  be  feared  that,  unless  some  new  securities 
were  devised,  the  forces  levied  for  the  reduction  of  Ireland 
would  be  employed  against  the  liberties  of  England.  Nor 
was  this  all.  A  horrible  suspicion,  unjust  indeed,  but  not  alto- 
gether unnatural,  had  arisen  in  many  minds.  The  queen  was 
an  avowed  Roman  Catholic :  the  king  was  not  regarded  by 
the  Puritans,  whom  he  had  mercilessly  persecuted,  as  a  sin- 
cere Protestant ;  and  so  notorious  was  his  duplicity,  that  there 
was  no  treachery  of  which  his  subjects  might  not,  with  some 
show  of  reason,  believe  him  capable.  It  was  soon  whispered 
that  the  rebellion  of  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ulster  was  part 
of  a  vast  work  of  darkness  wh'ch  had  been  planned  at 
Whitehall. 

After  some  weeks  of  prelude,  the  first  great  parliamentary 
conflict  between  the  parties  which  have  ever  since  contended 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  83 

and  are  still  contending,  for  the  government  of  the  nation, 
took  place  on  the  twenty-second  of  November,  1641.  It  was 
moved  by  the  oppositioi.,  that  the  House  of  Commons  should 
present  to  the  king  a  remonstrance,  enumerating  the  faults  of 
his  administration  from  the  time  of  his  accession,  and  express- 
ing the  distrust  with  which  his  policy  was  still  regarded  by  his 
people.  That  assembly,  which  a  few  months  before  had  been 
unanimous  in  calling  for  the  reform  of  abuses,  was  now  divided 
into  two  fierce  and  eager  factions  of  nearly  equal  strength. 
After  a  hot  debate  of  many  hours,  the  remonstrance  was  car- 
ried by  only  eleven  votes. 

The  result  of  this  struggle  was  highly  favorable  to  the  con- 
servative party.  It  could  not  be  doubted  that  only  some  gr->at 
indiscretion  could  prevent  them  from  shortly  obtaining  the 
predominance  in  the  Lower  House.  The  Upper  House  was 
already  their  own.  Nothing  was  wanting  to  insure  their  suc- 
cess, but  that  the  king  should,  in  all  his  conduct,  show  respect 
for  the  laws  and  scrupulous  good  faith  towards  his  subjects. 

His  first  measures  promised  well.  He  had,  it  seemed,  at 
last  discovered  that  an  entire  change  of  system  was  necessary, 
and  had  wisely  made  up  his  mind  to  what  could  no  longer  be 
avoided.  He  declared  his  determination  to  govern  in  harmony 
with  the  Commons,  and,  for  that  end,  to  call  to  his  counsels 
men  in  whose  talents  and  character  the  Commons  might  place 
confidence.  Nor  was  the  selection  ill  made.  Falkland,  Hyde, 
and  Colepepper,  all  three  distinguished  by  the  part  which  they 
had  taken  in  reforming  abuses  and  in  punishing  evil  ministers, 
were  invited  to  become  the  confidential  advisers  of  the  crown, 
and  were  solemnly  assured  by  Charles  that  he  would  take  no 
step  in  any  way  affecting  the  lower  house  of  parliament  with- 
out their  privity. 

Had  he  kept  this  promise  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  re- 
action which  was  already  in  progress  would  very  soon  have 
become  quite  as  strong  as  the  most  respectable  royalists  would 
have  desired.  Already  the  violent  members  of  the  opposition 
had  begun  to  despair  of  the  fortunes  of  their  party,  to  tremble 
for  their  own  safety,  and  to  talk  of  selling  their  estates  and 
emigrating  to  America.  That  the  fair  prospects  which  had  be- 
gun to  open  before  the  king  were  suddenly  overcast,  that  his 
life  was  darkened  by  adversity,  and  at  length  shortened  by 
violence,  is  to  be  attributed  to  his  own  faithlessness  and  con- 
tempt of  law. 

The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  he  detested  both  the  parties  into 


84  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

which  the  House  :>f  Commons  was  divided.  Nor  is  this 
strange ;  for  in  botn  those  parties  the  love  of  liberty  and  the 
love  of  order  were  mingled,  though  in  different  proportions. 
The  advisers  whom  necessity  had  compelled  Charles  to  call 
round  him  were  by  no  means  men  after  his  own  heart.  They 
had  joined  in  condemning  his  tyranny,  in  abridging  his  power, 
and  in  punishing  his  instruments.  They  were  now  indeed 
prepared  to  defend  by  strictly  legal  means  his  strictly  legal 
prerogatives ;  but  they  would  have  recoiled  with  horror 
from  the  thought  of  reviving  Wentworth's  projects  of  Thor- 
ough. They  were,  therefore,  in  the  king's  opinion,  traitors 
who  differed  only  in  the  degree  of  their  seditious  malignity 
from  Pym  and  Hampden. 

He  accordingly,  a  few  days  after  he  had  promised  the 
chiefs  of  the  constitutional  royalists  that  no  step  of  importance 
should  be  taken  without  their  knowledge,  formed  a  resolution 
the  most  momentous  of  his  whole  life,  carefully  concealed 
that  resolution  from  them,  and  executed  it  in  a  manner  which 
overwhelmed  them  with  shame  and  dismay.  He  sent  the 
attorney-general  to  impeach  Pym,  Hollis,  Hampden,  and 
other  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  of  high  treason  at 
the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords.  Not  content  with  this 
flagrant  violation  of  the  Great  Charter  and  of  the  uninterrupted 
practice  of  centuries,  he  went  in  person,  accompanied  by 
armed  men,  to  seize  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  within  the 
walls  of  parliament. 

The  attempt  failed.  The  accused  members  had  left  the 
House  a  short  time  before  Charles  entered  it.  A  sudden  and 
violent  revulsion  of  feeling,  both  in  the  parliament  and  in  the 
country,  followed.  The  most  favorable  view  that  has  ever 
been  taken  of  the  king's  conduct  on  this  occasion  by  his  most 
partial  advocates  is,  that  he  had  weakly  suffered  himself  to  be 
hurried  into  a  gross  indiscretion  by  the  evil  counsels  of  his 
wife  and  of  his  courtiers.  But  the  general  voice  loudly 
charged  him  with  far  deeper  guilt.  At  the  very  moment  at 
which  his  subjects,  after  a  long  estrangement  produced  by  his 
maladministration,  were  returning  to  him  with  feelings  of 
confidence  and  affection,  he  had  aimed  a  deadly  blow  at  all 
their  dearest  rights,  at  the  privileges  of  parliament,  at  the 
very  principle  of  trial  by  jury.  He  had  shown  that  he  con- 
sidered opposition  to  his  arbitraiy  designs  as  a  crime  to  be 
expiated  only  by  blood.  He  had  broken  faith,  not  only 
with  his  great  council  and  with  his  people,  but  with  his  own 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  85 

adherents.  He  had  done  what,  but  for  an  unforeseen  accident, 
would  probably  have  produced  a  bloody  conflict  round  the 
speaker's  chair.  Those  who  had  the  chief  sway  in  the  Lower 
House  now  felt  that  not  only  their  power  and  popularity,  but 
their  lands  and  their  necks,  were  staked,  on  the  event  of  the 
struggle  in  which  they  were  engaged.  The  flagging  zeal 
of  the  party  opposed  to  the  court  revived  in  an  instant. 
During  the  night  which  followed  the  outrage  the  whole  city  of 
London  was  in  arms.  In  a  few  hours  the  roads  leading  to  the 
capital  were  covered  with  multitudes  of  yeomen  spurring  hard 
to  Westminster  with  the  badges  of  the  parliamentary  cause  in 
their  hats.  In  the  House  of  Commons  the  opposition  became  at 
once  irresistible,  and  carried,  by  more  than  two  votes  to  one, 
resolutions  of  unprecedented  violence.  Strong  bodies  of  the 
trainbands,  regularly  relieved,  mounted  guard  round  West- 
minster Hall.  The  gates  of  the  king's  palace  were  daily 
besieged  by  a  furious  multitude,  whose  taunts  and  execrations 
were  heard  even  in  the  presence  chamber,  and  who  could 
scarcely  be  kept  out  of  the  roya!  apartments  by  the  gentlemen 
of  the  household.  Had  Charles  remained  much  longer  in 
his  stormy  capital,  it  is  probable  that  the  Commons  would 
have  found  a  plea  for  making  him,  under  outward  forms  of 
respect,  a  state  prisoner. 

He  quitted  London,  never  to  return  till  the  day  of  a  terrible 
and  memorable  reckoning  had  arrived.  A^negotiation  began 
which  occupied  many  months.  Accusations  and  recrimina- 
tions passed  backward  and  forward  between  the  contending 
parties.  All  accommodation  had  become  impossible.  The 
sure  punishment  which  waits  on  habitual  perfidy  had  at  length 
overtaken  the  king.  It  was  to  no  purpose  that  he  now  pawned 
his  royal  word,  and  invoked  Heaven  to  witness  the  sincerity 
of  his  professions.  The  distrust  with  which  his  adversaries 
regarded  him  was  not  to  be  removed  by  oaths  or  treaties. 
They  were  convinced  that  they  could  be  safe  only  when  he 
was  utterly  helpless.  Their  demand,  therefore,  was,  that  he 
should  surrender,  not  only  those  prerogatives,  which  he  had 
usurped  in  violation  of  ancient  laws  and  of  his  own  recent 
promises,  but  also  other  prerogatives,  which  the  English  kings 
had  possessed  from  time  immemorial,  and  continue  to 
possess  at  the  present  day.  No  minister  must  be  appointed, 
no  peer  created,  without  the  consent  of  the  Houses.  Above 
all,  the  sovereign  must  resign  that  supreme  military  authority 
which,  from  time  beyond  all  memory,  had  appertained  to  the 
vegal  office. 

VOL.  l.  8 


86  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

That  Charles  would  comply  with  such  demands  while  he 
had  any  means  of  resistance  was  not  to  be  expected.  Yet  it 
will  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  Houses  could  safely  have 
exacted  less.  They  were  truly  in  a  most  embarrassing 
position.  The  great  majority  of  the  nation  was  firmly 
attached  to  hereditary  monarchy.  Those  who  held  repub- 
lican opinions  were  as  yet  few,  and  did  not  venture  to  speak 
out.  It  was  therefore  impossible  to  abolish  kingly  govern- 
ment. Yet  it  was  plain  that  no  confidence  could  be  placed 
in  the  king.  It  would  have  been  absurd  in  -those  who  knew, 
by  recent  proof,  that  he  was  bent  on  destroying  them,  to 
content  themselves  with  presenting  to  him  another  petition 
of  right,  and  receiving  from  him  fresh  promises  similar  to 
those  which  he  had  repeatedly  made  and  broken.  Nothing 
but  the  want  of  an  army  had  prevented  him  from  entirely 
subverting  the  old  constitution  of  the  realm.  It  was  now 
necessary  to  levy  a  great  regular  army  for  the  conquest  of 
Ireland  ;  and  it  would  therefore  have  been  mere  insanity 
to  leave  him  in  possession  of  that  plenitude  of  military 
authority  which  his  ancestors  had  enjoyed. 

When  a  country  is  in  the  situation  in  which  England  then 
was,  when  the  kingly  office  is  regarded  with  love  and  venera- 
tion, but  the  person  who  fills  that  office  is  hated  and  dis- 
trusted, it  should  seem  that  the  course  which  ought  to  be 
taken  is  obvious.  The  dignity  of  the  office  should  be  pre- 
served ;  the  person  should  be  discarded.  Thus  our  ancestors 
acted  in  1399  and  in  1689.  Had  there  been,  in  1642,  any  man 
occupying  a  position  similar  to  that  which  Henry  of  Lancaster 
occupied  at  the  time  of  the  deposition  of  Richard  the  Second, 
and  which  the  Prince  of  Orange  occupied  at  the  time  of  the 
deposition  of  James  the  Second,  it  is  probable  that  the  Houses 
would  have  changed  the  dynasty,  and  would  have  made  no 
formal  change  in  the  constitution.  The  new  king,  called  to 
the  throne  by  their  choice,  and  dependent  on  their  support, 
would  have  been  under  the  necessity  of  governing  in  con- 
formity with  their  wishes  and  opinions.  But  there  was  no 
prince  of  the  blood  royal  in  the  parliamentary  party ;  and, 
though  that  party  contained  many  men  of  high  rank  and  many 
men  of  eminent  ability,  there  was  none  who  towered  so  con- 
spicuously above  the  rest  that  he  could  be  proposed  as  a 
candidate  for  the  crown.  As  there  was  tc  be  a  king,  and  as 
no  new  king  was  to  be  found,  it  was  necessary  to  leave  the 
regal  title  to  Charles.  Only  one  course,  therefore,  was  left ; 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  87 

and  that  was  to  disjoin  the  regal  title  from  the  regal  pre- 
rogatives. 

The  change  which  the  Houses  proposed  to  make  in  our 
institutions,  though  it  seems  exorbitant,  when  distinctly  sel 
forth  and  digested  into  articles  of  capitulation,  really  amounts 
*o  little  more  than  the  change  which,  in  the  next  generation 
was  effected  by  the  Revolution.  It  is  true  that  at  the  Rev- 
olution the -sovereign  was  not  deprived  by  law  of  the  power 
of  naming  his  ministers ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  since  the 
Revolution  no  ministry  has  been  able  to  remain  in  office 
six  months  in  opposition  to  the  sense  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. It  is  true  that  the  sovereign  still  possesses  the  power 
of  creating  peers,  and  the  more  important  power  of  the 
sword ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  in  the  exercise  of  these 
powers  the  sovereign  has,  ever  since  the  Revolution,  been 
guided  by  advisers  who  possess  the  confidence  of  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  nation.  In  fact,  the  leaders  of  the  Round- 
head party  in  1642,  and  the  statesmen  who,  about  half  a 
century  later,  effected  the  Revolution,  had  exactly  the  same 
object  in  view.  The  object  was  to  terminate  the  contest 
between  the  crown  and  the  parliament,  by  giving  to  the  par- 
liament a  supreme  control  over  the  executive  administration. 
The  statesmen  of  the  Revolution  effected  this  indirectly  by 
changing  the  dynasty.  The  Roundheads  of  1642,  being 
unable  to  change  the  dynasty,  were  compelled  to  take  a 
direct  course  towards  their  end. 

We  cannot,  however,  wonder  that  the  demands  of  the  op- 
position, importing  as  they  did  a  complete  and  formal  transfer 
to  the  parliament  of  powers  which  had  always  belonged  to 
the  crown,  should  have  shocked  that  great  party  of  which  the 
characteristics  are  respect  for  constituted  authority  and  dread 
of  violent  innovation.  That  party  had  recently  been  in  the 
hope  of  obtaining  by  peaceable  means  the  ascendency  in  the 
House  of  Commons  ;  but  that  hope  had  been  blighted.  The 
duplicity  of  Charles  had  made  his  old  enemies  irreconcilable, 
had  driven  back  into  the  ranks  of  the  disaffected  a  crowd  of 
moderate  men  who  were  in  the  very  act  of  coming  over  to 
his  side,  and  had  so  cruelly  mortified  his  best  friends  that 
they  had  for  a  time  stood  aloof  in  silent  shame  and  resent- 
ment. Now,  however,  the  constitutional  royalists  were  forced 
to  make  their  choice  between  two  dangers ;  and  they  thought 
it  their  duty  rather  to  rally  round  a  prince  whose  past  conduct 
ihey  condemned,  and  whose  woi'd  inspired  them  with  little 


88  HISTORY    CF    ENGLAND. 

confidence,  than  to  suffer  the  regal  office  to  be  degraded,  and 
the  polity  of  the  realm  to  be  entirely  remodelled.  With 
such  feelings,  many  men  whose  virtues  and  abilities  would 
have  done  honor  to  any  cause  ranged  themselves  on  the  side 
of  the  king. 

In  August,  1642,  the  sword  was  at  length  drawn  ;  and 
soon,  in  almost  every  shire  of  the  kingdom,  two  hostile 
factions  appeared  in  arms  against  each  other.  It  is  not  easy 
to  say  which  of  the  contending  parties  was  at  first  the  more 
formidable.  The  Houses  commanded  London  and  the  coun- 
ties round  London,  the  fleet,  the  navigation  of  the  Thames, 
and  most  of  the  large  towns  and  seaports.  They  had  at  their 
disposal  almost  all  the  military  stores  of  the  kingdom,  and 
were  able  to  raise  duties,  both  on  goods  imported  from  foreign 
countries,  and  on  some  important  products  of  domestic  indus- 
try. The  king  was  ill  provided  with  artillery  and  ammunition. 
The  taxes  which  he  laid  on  the  rural  districts  occupied  by  his 
iroops  produced,  it  is  probable,  a  sum  far  less  than  that  which 
the  parliament  drew  from  the  city  of  London  alone.  He 
relied,  indeed,  chiefly,  for  pecuniary  aid,  on  the  munificence 
of  his  opulent  adherents.  Many  of  these  mortgaged  their 
land,  pawned  their  jewels,  and  broke  up  their  silver  chargers 
and  christening  bowls,  in  order  to  assist  him.  But  experience 
has  fully  proved  that  the  voluntary  liberality  of  individuals, 
even  in  times  of  the  greatest  excitement,  is  a  poor  financial 
resource  when  compared  with  severe  and  methodical  taxation, 
which  presses  on  the  willing  and  unwilling  alike. 

Charles,  however,  had  one  advantage,  which,  if  he  had 
used  it  well,  would  have  more  than  compensated  for  the  want 
of  stores  and  money,  and  which,  notwithstanding  his  misman- 
agement, gave  him,  during  some  months,  a  superiority  in  the 
war.  His  troops  at  first  fought  much  better  than  those  of  the 
parliament.  Both  armies,  it  is  true,  were  almost  entirely  com- 
posed of  men  who  had  never  seen  a  field  of  battle.  Never- 
theless, the  difference  was  great.  The  parliamentary  ranks' 
were  filled  with  hirelings  whom  want  and  idleness  had  induced 
to  enlist.  Hampden's  regiment  was  regarded  as  one  of  the 
Dest ;  and  even  Hampden's  regiment  was  described  by  Crom- 
well as  a  mere  rabble  of  tapsters  and  serving  men  out  of 
place.  The  royal  army,  on  the  other  hand,  consisted  in  great 
part  of  gentlemen,  high-spirited,  ardent,  accustomed  to  con- 
sider dishonor  as  more  terrible  than  death,  accustomed  to 
fencing,  to  the  use  of  firearms,  to  bold  riding,  and  to  manly 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  89 

and  perilous  sport,  which  has  been  well  called  the  image  of 
war.  Such  gentlemen,  mounted  on  their  favorite  horses,  and 
commanding  little  bands,  composed  of  their  younger  brothers, 
grooms,  game-keepers,  and  huntsmen,  were,  from  the  very 
first  day  on  which  they  took  the  field,  qualified  to  play  their 
part  with  credit  in  a  skirmish.  The  steadiness,  the  prompt 
obedience,  the  mechanical  precision  of  movement,  which  are 
characteristic  of  the  regular  soldier,  these  gallant  volunteers 
never  attained.  But  they  were  at  first  opposed  to  enemies  as 
undisciplined  as  themselves,  and  far  less  active,  athletic,  and 
daring.  For  a  time,  therefore,  the  Cavaliers  were  successful 
in  almost  every  encounter. 

The  Houses  had  also  been  unfortunate  in  the  choice  of  a 
general.  The  rank  and  wealth  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  made 
him  one  of  the  most  important  members  of  the  parliamentary 
party.  He  had  borne  arms  on  the  Continent  with  credit,  and, 
when  the  war  began,  had  as  high  a  military  reputation  as  any 
man  in  the  country.  But  it  soon  appeared  that  he  was  unfit 
for  the  post  of  commander-in-chief.  He  had  little  energy  and 
no  originality.  The  methodical  tactics  which  he  had  learned 
in  the  war  of  the  Palatinate  did  not  save  him  from  the  dis- 
grace of  being  surprised  and  baffled  by  such  a  captain  as 
Rupert,  who  could  claim  no  higher  fame  than  that  of  an  en- 
terprising partisan. 

Nor  were  the  officers  who  held  the  chief  commissions  un- 
der Essex  qualified  to  supply  what  was  wanting  in  him.  For 
this,  indeed,  the  Houses  are  scarcely  to  be  blamed.  In  a  country 
svhich  had  not,  within  the  memory  of  the  oldest  person  living, 
made  war  on  a  great  scale  by  land,  generals  of  tried  skill  and 
valor  were  not  to  be  found.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  in 
the  first  instance,  to  trust  untried  men ;  and  the  preference 
was  naturally  given  to  men  distinguished  either  by  their 
station,  or  by  the  abilities  which  they  had  displayed  in  parlia- 
ment. In  scarcely  a  single  instance,  however,  was  the  selec- 
tion fortunate.  Neither  the  grandees  nor  the  orators  proved 
good  soldiers.  The  Earl  of  Stamford,  one  of  the  greatest 
nobles  of  England,  was  routed  by  the  royalists  at  Stratton. 
Nathaniel  Fiennes,  inferior  to  none  of  his  contemporaries  in 
talents  for  civil  business,  disgraced  himself  by  the  pusillani- 
mous surrender  of  Bristol.  Indeed,  of  all  the  statesmen  who 
at  this  juncture  accepted  high  military  commands,  Hampden 
alone  appears  to  have  carried  into  the  camp  the  capacity  and 
strength  of  mind  which  had  made  him  eminent  in  politics. 
8* 


90  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

When  the  war  had  lasted  a  year,  the  advantage  wa?  de 
cidedly  with  the  royalists.  They  were  victorious  both  in  the 
western  and  in  the  northern  counties.  They  had  wrested 
Bristol,  the  second  city  in  the  kingdom,  from  the  parliament. 
They  had  won  several  battles,  and  had  not  sustained  a  single 
serious  or  ignominious  defeat.  Among  the  Roundheads  ad- 
versity had  begun  to  produce  dissension  and  discontent.  The 
parliament  was  kept  in  alarm,  sometimes  by  plots,  and  some- 
times by  riots.  It  was  thought  necessary  to  fortify  London 
against  the  royal  army,  and  to  hang  some  disaffected  citizens 
at  their  owji  doors.  Several  of  the  most  distinguished  peers 
who  had  hitherto  remained  at  Westminster  fled  to  the  court  at 
Oxford  ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that,  if  the  operations  of  the 
Cavaliers  had,  at  this  season,  been  directed  by  a  sagacious 
and  powerful  mind,  Charles  would  soon  have  marched  in 
triumph  to  Whitehall. 

But  the  king  suffered  the  auspicious  moment  to  pass  away  ; 
and  it  never  returned.  In  August,  1643,  he  sate  down  before 
the  city  of  Gloucester.  That  city  was  defended  by  the  inhab- 
itants and  by  the  garrison,  with  a  determination  such  as  had 
not,  since  the  commencement  of  the  war,  been  shown  by  the 
adherents  of  the  parliament.  The  emulation  of  London  was 
excited.  The  trainbands  of  the  city  volunteered  to  march 
wherever  their  services  might  be  required.  A  great  force 
was  speedily  collected,  and  began  to  move  westward.  The 
siege  of  Gloucester  was  raised.  The  royalists  in  every 
part  of  the  kingdom  were  disheartened :  the  spirit  of  the 
parliamentary  party  revived ;  and  the  apostate  lords,  who 
had  lately  fled  from  Westminster  to  Oxford,  hastened  oack 
from  Oxford  to  Westminster. 

And  now  a  new  and  alarming  class  of  symptoms  began  to 
appear  in  the  distempered  body  politic.  There  had  been, 
from  the  first,  in  the  parliamentary  party,  some  men  whose 
minds  were  set  on  objects  from  which  the  majority  of  thai 
party  would  have  shrunk  with  horror.  These  men  were,  in 
religion,  Independents.  They  conceived  that  every  Christian 
congregation  had,  under  Christ,  supreme  jurisdiction  in  things 
spiritual ;  that  appeals  to  provincial  and  national  synods  wero 
scarcely  less  unscriptural  than  appeals  to  the  Court  of  Arches, 
or  to  the  Vatican:  and  that  Popery,  Prelacy,  and  Presby- 
terianism  were  merely  three  forms  of  one  great  apostasy.  In 
politics  they  were,  to  use  the  phrase  of  their  time,  root  and 
branch  men,  or,  to  use  the  kindred  phrase  of  our  own  time. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  91 

radicals.  Not  content  with  limiting  (he  power  of  the  mon- 
arch, they  were  desirous  to  erect  a  commonwealth  on  the 
ruins  of  the  old  English  polity.  At  first  they  had  been  incon- 
siderable, both  in  numbers  and  in  weight ;  but,  before  the  war 
had  lasted  two  years,  they  became,  not  indeed  the  largest,  but 
the  most  powerful  faction  in  the  country.  Some  of  the  old 
parliamentary  leaders  had  been  removed  by  death  ;  and  others 
had  forfeited  the  public  confidence.  Pym  had  been  borne, 
with  princeiy  honors,  to  a  grave  among  the  Plantagenets. 
Hampden  had  fallen,  as  became  him,  while  vainly  endeavor- 
ing, by  his  heroic  example,  to  inspire  his  followers  with  cour- 
age to  face  the  fiery  cavalry  of  Rupert.  Bedford  had  been 
untrue  to  the  cause.  Northumberland  was  known  to  be  luke- 
warm. Essex  and  his  lieutenants  had  shown  little  vigor  and 
ability  in  the  conduct  of  military  operations.  At  such  a  con- 
juncture it  was  that  the  Independent  party,  ardent,  resolute, 
and  uncompromising,  began  to  raise  its  head,  both  in  the  camp 
and  in  the  parliament. 

The  soul  of  that  party  was  Oliver  Cromwell.*  Bred  to 
peaceful  occupations,  he  had,  at  more  than  forty  years  of  age, 
accepted  a  commission  in  the  parliamentary  army.  No  sooner 
had  he  become  a  soldier,  than  he  discerned,  with  the  keen 
glance  of  genius,  what  Essex  and  men  like  Essex,  with  all 
their  experience,  were  unable  to  perceive.  He  saw  precisely 
'  where  the  strength  of  the  royalists  lay,  and  by  what  means 
alone  that  strength  could  be  overpowered.  He  saw  that  it  was 
necessary  to  reconstruct  the  army  of  the  parliament.  He 
saw,  also,  that  there  were  abundant  and  excellent  materials 
for  the  purpose  ;  materials  less  showy,  indeed,  but  more  solid, 
than  those  of  which  the  gallant  squadrons^of  the  king  were 
composed.  It  was  necessary  to  look  for  recruits  who  were 
not  mere  mercenaries,  —  for  recruits  of  decent  station  and 
grave  character,  fearing  God  and  zealous  for  public  liberty. 
With  such  men  he  filled  his  own  regiment,  and,  while  he  sub- 
jected them  to  a  discipline  .more  rigid  than  had  ever  before 
been  known  in  England,  he  administered  to  their  intellectual 
and  moral  nature  stimulants  of  fearful  potency. 

The  events  of  the  year  1644  fully  proved  the  superiority 
of  his  abilities.  In  the  south,  where  Essex  held  the  com- 
mand, the  parliamentary  forces  underwent  a  succession  of 
shameful  disasters ;  but  in  the  north  the  victory  of  Marston 
Moor  fully  compensated  for  all  that  had  been  lost  elsewhere. 
Tnat  victory  was  not  a  more  serious  blow  to  the  royalists  than 
*  l4*^v  U.-  U-.^-'..--'*  V. .  •.  V  UosWv'-'-.v.lW-i'i"^  ,  )S^1 


y*x5  HISTCRT    OF    ENGLAND. 

to  the  party  which  had  hitherto  been  dominant  at  Westminster , 
for  it  was  notorious  that  the  day,  disgracefully  lost  by  tha 
Presbyterians,  had  been  retrieved  by  the  energy  of  Cromwell 
and  by  the  steady  valor  of  the  warriors  whom  he  had  trained. 

These  events  produced  the  self-denying  ordinance  and  the 
new  model  of  the  army.  Under  decorous  pretexts,  and  with 
every  mark  of  respect,  Essex  and  most  of  those  who  had  held 
high  posts  under  him  were  removed  ;  and  the  conduct  of  the 
war  was  intrusted  to  very  different  hands.  Fairfax,  a  brave 
soldier,  but  of  mean  understanding  and  irresolute  temper,  was 
the  nominal  lord-general  of  the  forces;  but  Cromwell  was 
their  real  head. 

Cromwell  made  haste  to  organize  the  whole  army  on  the 
same  principles  on  which  he  had  organized  his  own  regiment. 
As  soon  as  this  process  was  complete,  the  event  of  the  war 
was  decided.  The  Cavaliers  had  now  to  encounter  natural 
courage  equal  to  their  own,  enthusiasm  stronger  than  their 
own,  and  discipline  such  as  was  utterly  wanting  to  them.  It 
soon  became  a  proverb  that  the  soldiers  of  Fairfax  and  Crom- 
well were  men  of  a  different  breed  from  the  soldiers  of  Es- 
sex. At  Naseby  took  place  the  first  great  encounter  between 
the  royalists  and  the  remodelled  army  of  the  Houses.  The 
victory  of  the  Roundheads  was  complete  and  decisive.  It 
was  followed  by  other  triumphs  in  rapid  succession.  In  a  few 
months,  the  authority  of  the  parliament  was  fully  established 
over  the  whole  kingdom.  Charles  fled  to  the  Scots,  and  was 
by  them,  in  a  manner  which  did  not  much  exalt  their  national 
character,  delivered  up  to  his  English  subjects. 

While  the  event  of  the  war  was  still  doubtful,  the  Houses 
had  put  the  primate  to  death,  had  interdicted,  within  the  sphere 
of  their  authority,  the  use  of  the  liturgy,  and  had  required  all 
men  to  subscribe  that  renowned  instrument  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  When  the  strug- 
gle was  over,  the  work  of  innovation  and  revenge  was  pushed 
on  with  still  greater  ardor.  The. ecclesiastical  polity  of  the 
kingdom  was  remodelled.  Most  of  the  old  clergy  were 
ejected  from  their  benefices.  Fines,  often  of  ruinous  amount, 
were  laid  on  the  royalists,  already  impoverished  by  large  aids 
furnished  to  the  king.  Many  estates  were  confiscated.  Many 
proscribed  Cavaliers  found  it  expedient  to  purchase,  at  an 
enormous  cost,  the  protection  of  eminent  members  of  the  vic- 
torious party.  Large  domains  belonging  to  the  crown,  to  the 
oishops,  and  to  the  chapters,  were  seized,  and  either  granted 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  93 

away  or  put  t  p  to  auction.  In  consequence  of  these  spolia- 
tions, a  great  part  of  the  soil  of  England  was  at  once  offered 
for  sale.  '  As  money  was  scarce,  as  the  market  was  glutted, 
as  the  title  was  insecure,  and  as  the  awe  inspired  by  powerful 
bidders  prevented  free  competition,  the  prices  were  often 
merely  nominal.  Thus  many  old  and  honorable  families  dis- 
appeared and  were  heard  of  no  more ;  and  many  new  men 
rose  rapidly  to  affluence. 

But,  while  the  Houses  were  employing  their  authority  thus, 
it  suddenly  passed  out  of  their  hands.  It  had  .been  obtained 
by  calling  into  existence  a  power  which  could  not  be  con- 
trolled. In  the  summer  of  1647,  about  twelve  months  after 
the  last  fortress  of  the  Cavaliers  had  submitted  to  the  parlia- 
ment, the  parliament  was  compelled  to  submit  to  its  own 
soldiers. 

Thirteen  years  followed,  during  which  England  was,  under 
various  names  and  forms,  really  governed  by  the  sword. 
Never,  before  that  time,  or  since  that  time,  was  the  civil  power 
in  our  country  subjected  to  military  dictation. 

The  army  which  now  became  supreme  in  the  state  was  an 
army  very  different  from  any  that  has  since  been  seen  among 
us.  At  present,  the  pay  of  the  common  soldier  is  not  such  as 
can  seduce  any  but  the  humblest  class  of  English  laborers 
from  their  calling.  A  barrier  almost  impassable  separates  him 
from  the  commissioned  officer.  The  great  majority  of  those 
who  rise  high  in  the  service  rise  by  purchase.  So  numerous 
and  extensive  are  the  remote  dependencies  of  England,  that 
every  man  who  enlists  in  the  line  must  expect  to  pass  many 
years  in  exile,  and  some  years  in  climates  unfavorable  to  the 
health  and  vigor  of  the  European  race.  The  army  of  the 
Long  Parliament  was  raised  for  home  service.  The  pay  of 
the  private  soldier  was  much  above  the  wages  earned  by  the 
great  body  of  the  people ;  and,  if  he  distinguished  himself  by 
intelligence  and  courage,  he  might  hope  to  attain  high  com- 
mands. The  ranks  were  accordingly  composed  of  persons 
superior  in  station  and  education  to  the  multitude.  These 
persons,  sober,  moral,  diligent,  and  accustomed  to  reflect,  had 
been  induced  to  take  up  arms,  not  by  the  pressure  of  want, 
not  by  the  love  of  novelty  and  license,  not  by  the  arts  of 
recruiting  officers,  but  by  religious  and  political  zeal,  mingled 
with  the  desire  of  distinction  and  promotion.  The  boast  of 
the  soldiers,  as  we  find  it  recorded  in  their  solemn  resolutions, 
was,  that  they  had  not  been  forced  into  the  service,  nor  had 


94  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

enlisted  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  lucre ;  that  they  were  no 
janizaries,  but  free-born  Englishmen,  who  had,  of  their  own 
accord,  put  their  lives  in  jeopardy  for  the  liberties  and  religion 
of  England,  and  whose  right  and  duty  it  was  to  watch  over 
the  welfare  of  the  nation  which  they  had  saved. 

A  force  thus  composed  might,  without  injury  to  its  efficien- 
cy, be  indulged  in  some  liberties  which,  if  allowed  to  any 
other  troops,  would  have  proved  subversive  of  all  discipline. 
In  general,  soldiers  who  should  form  themselves  into  political 
clubs,  elect  delegates,  and  pass  resolutions  on  high  questions 
of  state,  would  soon  break  loose  from  all  control,  would  cease 
to  form  an  army,  and  would  become  the  worst  and  most  dan- 
gerous of  mobs.  Nor  would  it  be  safe,  in  our  time,  to  tolerate 
in  any  regiment  religious  meetings,  at  which  a  corporal  versed 
in  Scripture  should  lead  the  devotions  of  his  less  gifted  colonel, 
and  admonish  a  backsliding  major.  But  such  was  the  intel- 
ligence, the  gravity,  and  the  self-command  of  the  warriors 
whom  Cromwell  had  trained,  that  in  their  camp  a  political 
organization  and  a  religious  organization  could  exist  without 
destroying  military  organization.  The  same  men,  who,  off 
duty,  were  noted  as  demagogues  and  field-preachers,  were 
distinguished  by  steadiness,  by  the  spirit  of  order,  and  by 
prompt  obedience  on  watch,  on  drill,  and  on  the  field  of  battle. 

In  war  this  strange  force  was  irresistible.  The  stubborn 
courage  characteristic  of  the  English  people  was,  by  the  sys- 
tem of  Cromwell,  at  once  regulated  and  stimulated.  Other 
leaders  have  maintained-  order  as  strict.  Other  leaders  have 
inspired  their  followers  with  a  zeal  as  ardent.  But  in  his  camp 
alone  the  most  rigid  discipline  was  found  in  company  with  the 
fiercest  enthusiasm.  His  troops  moved  to  victory  with  the 
precision  of  machines,  while  burning  with  the  wildest  fanati- 
cism of  crusaders.  From  the  time  when  the  army  was  re- 
modelled to  the  time  when  it  was  disbanded,  it  never  found, 
either  in  the  British  Islands,  or  on  the  Continent,  an  enemy 
who  could  stand  its  onset.  In  England,  Scotland,  Ireland, 
Flanders,  the  Puritan  warriors,  often  surrounded  by  difficulties, 
sometimes  contending  against  threefold  odds,  not  only  never 
failed  to  conquer,  but  never  failed  to  destroy  and  break  in 
pieces  whatever  force  was  opposed  to  them.  They  at  length 
came  to  regard  the  day  of  battle  as  a  day  of  certain  triumph, 
and  marched  against  the  most  renowned  battalions  of  Europe 
with  disdainful  confidence.  Turenne  was  startled  by  the  shout 
of  stern  exultation  with  which  his  English  allies  advanced  to 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  95 

the  combat,  and  expressed  the  delight  of  a  true  soldier  when 
he  learned  that  it  was  ever  the  fashion  of  Cromwell's  pikemen 
to  rejoice  greatly  when  they  beheld  the  enemy ;  and  the  ban- 
ished Cavaliers  felt  an  emotion  of  national  pride,  when  they 
saw  a  brigade  of  their  countrymen,  outnumbered  by  foes  and 
abandoned  by  allies,  drive  before  it  in  headlong  rout  the  finest 
infantry  of  Spain,  and  force  a  passage  into  a  counterscarp 
which  had  just  been  pronounced  impregnable  by  the  ablest  of 
Jie  marshals  of  France. 

But  that  which  chiefly  distinguished  the  army  of  Cromwell 
."rom  other  armies  was  the  austere  morality  and  the  fear  of 
God  which  pervaded  all  ranks.  It  is  acknowledged  by  the 
most  zealous  royalists  that,  in  that  singular  camp,  no  oath  was 
heard,  no  drunkenness  or  gambling  was  seen,  and  that,  during 
the  long  dominion  of  the  soldiery,  the  property  of  the  peace- 
able citizen  and  the  honor  of  woman  were  held  sacred.  If 
outrages  were  committed,  they  were  outrages  of  a  veiy  differ- 
ent kind  from  those  of  which  a  victorious  army  is  generally 
guilty.  No  servant  girl  complained  of  the  rough  gallantry  of  , 
the  redcoats.  Not  an  ounce  of  plate  was  taken  from  the  shops 
of  the  goldsmiths.  But  a  Pelagian  sermon,  or  a  window  on 
which  the  Virgin  and  Child  were  painted,  produced  in  the 
Puritan  ranks  an  excitement  which  it  required  the  utmost  ex- 
ertions of  the  officers  to  quell.  One  of  Cromwell's  chief  diffi- 
culties was  to  restrain  his  pikemen  and  dragoons  from  invading 
by  main  force  the  pulpits  of  ministers  whose  discourses,  to  use 
the  language  of  that  time,  were  not  savory ;  and  too  many  of 
our  cathedrals  still  bear  the  marks  of  the  hatred  with  which 
those  stern  spirits  regarded  every  vestige  of  Popery. 

To  keep  down  the  English  people  ~ivas  no  light  task  even 
for  that  army.  No  sooner  was  the  first  pressure  of  military 
tyranny  felt  than  the  nation,  unbroken  to  such  servitude,  began 
to  struggle  fiercely.  Insurrections  broke  out  even  in  those 
counties  which,  during  the  recent  war,  had  been  the  most  sub- 
missive to  the  parliament.  Indeed,  the  parliament  itself  ab- 
horred its  old  defenders  more  than  its  old  enemies,  and  was 
desirous  to  come  to  terms  of  accommodation  with  Charles  at 
the  expense  of  the  troops.  In  Scotland,  at  the  same  time,  a 
coalition  was  formed  between  the  royalists  and  a  large  body 
of  Presbyterians  who  regarded  the  doctrines  of  the  Inde- 
pendents with  detestation.  At  length  the  storm  burst.  There 
were  risings  in  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  Essex,  Kent,  Wales.  The 
fleet  in  the  Thames  suddenly  hoisted  the  royal  colors,  stood 


96  HISTORY    OF    |ZNGLAND. 

out  to  sea,  and  menaced  the  southern  coast.  A  great  Scot- 
tish force  crossed  the  frontier  and  advanced  into  Lancashire. 
It  might  well  be  suspected  that  these  movements  were  con- 
templated with  secret  complacency  by  a  majority  both  of  the 
Lords  and  of  the  Commons. 

But  the  yoke  of  the  army  was  not  to  be  so  shaken  off.  While 
Fairfax  suppressed  the  risings  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  cap- 
ital, Oliver  routed  the  Welsh  insurgents,  and,  leaving  their 
castles  in  ruins,  marched  against  the  Scots.  His  troops  were 
few,  when  compared  with  the  invaders ;  but  he  was  little  in 
the  habit  of  counting  his  enemies.  The  Scottish  army  was 
utterly  destroyed.  A  change  in  the  Scottish  government  fol- 
lowed. An  administration,  hostile  to  the  king,  was  formed  at 
Edinburgh  ;  and  Cromwell,  more  than  ever  the  darling  of  his 
soldiers,  returned  in  triumph  to  London. 

And  now  a  design,  to  which,  at  the  commencement  of  the 
civil  war,  no  man  would  have  dared  to  allude,  and  which  was 
not  less  inconsistent  with  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  than 
with  the  old  law  of  England,  began  to  take  a  distinct  form.  The 
austere  warriors  who  ruled  the  nation  had,  during  some  months, 
meditated  a  fearful  vengeance  on  the  captive  king.  When  and 
how  the  scheme  originated ;  whether  it  spread  from  the  gen- 
eral to  the  ranks,  or  from  the  ranks  to  the  general ;  whether  it 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  policy  using  fanaticism  as  a  tool,  or  to  fa- 
naticism bearing  down  policy  with  headlong  impulse,  are  ques- 
tions which,  even  at  this  day,  cannot  be  answered  with  perfect 
confidence.  It  seems,  however,  on  the  whole,  probable  that 
he  who  seemed  to  lead  was  really  forced  to  follow,  and  that, 
on  this  occasion,  as  on  another  great  occasion  a  few  years 
later,  he  sacrificed  his  own  judgment  and  his  own  inclinations 
to  the  wishes  of  the  army.  For  the  power  which  he  had  called 
into  existence  was  a  power  which  even  he  could  not  always 
control ;  and,  that  he  might  ordinarily  command,  it  was  neces- 
sary that  he  should  sometimes  obey.  He  publicly  protested 
that  he  was  no  mover  in  the  matter,  that  the  first  steps  had 
been  taken  without  his  privity,  that  he  could  not  advise  the 
parliament  to  strike  the  blow,  but  that  he  submitted  his  own 
feelings  to  the  force  of  circumstances  which  seemed  to  him  to 
indicate  the  purposes  of  Providence.  It  has  been  the  fashion 
to  consider  these  professions  as  instances  of  the  hypocrisy 
which  is  vulgarly  imputed  to  him.  -But  even  those  who  pro- 
nounce him  a  hypocrite  will  scarcely  venture  to  call  him  a 
fool.  They  are  therefore  boun<ji  to  show  that  he  had  some 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  97 

purpose  to  serve  by  secretly  stimulating  the  army  to  take  that 
course  which  he  did  not  venture  openly  to  recommend. 
It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  he,  who  was  never  by  his 
respectable  enemies  represented  as  wantonly  cruel  or  implaca- 
bly vindictive,  would  have  taken  the  most  important  step  of 
his  life  under  the  influence  of  mere  malevolence.  He  was 
far  too  wise  a  man  not  to  know,  when  he  consented  to  shed 
that  august  blood,  that  he  was  doing  a  deed  which  was  inexpi- 
able, and  which  would  move  the  grief  and  horror,  not  only  of 
the  royalists,  but  of  nine  tenths  of  those  who  had  stood  by  the 
parliament.  Whatever  visions  may  have  deluded  others,  he 
was  assuredly  dreaming  neither  of  a  republic  on  the  antique 
pattern,  nor  of  the  millennial  reign  of  the  saints.  If  he  al- 
ready aspired  to  be  himself  the  founder  of  a  new  dynasty,  it 
was  plain  that  Charles  the  First  was  a  less  formidable  competitor 
than  Charles  the  Second  would  be.  At  the  moment  of  the 
death  of  Charles  the  First  the  loyalty  of  every  Cavalier  would 
be  transferred,  unimpaired,  to  Charles  the  Second.  Charles  the 
First  was  a  captive  ;  Charles  the  Second  would  be  at  liberty. 
Charles  the  First  was  an  object  of  suspicion  and  dislike  to  a 
large  proportion  of  those  who  yet  shuddered  at  the  thought  of 
slaying  him ;  Charles  the  Second  would  excite  all  the  interest 
which  belongs  to  distressed  youth  and  innocence.  It  is  im- 
possible to  believe  that  considerations  so  obvious,  and  so  im- 
portant, escaped  the  most  profound"  politician  of  that  age.  The 
truth  is,  that  Cromwell  had,  at  one  time,  meant  to  mediate 
between  the  throne  and  the  parliament,  and  to  reorganize  the 
distracted  state  by  the  power  of  the  sword,  under^the  sanction 
of  the  royal  name.  In  this  design  he  persisted  till  he  was 
compelled  to  abandon  it,  by  the  refractory  temper  of  the  sol- 
diers, and  by  the  incurable  duplicity  of  the  king.  A  party  in 
the  camp  began  to  clamor  for  the  head  of  the  traitor,  who 
was  for  treating  with  Agag.  Conspiracies  were  formed 
Threats  of  impeachment  were  loudly  uttered.  A  mutiny 
broke  out,  which  all  the  vigor  and  resolution  of  Oliver  could 
hardly  quell.  And  though,  by  a  judicious  mixture  of  severity 
and  kindness,  he  succeeded  in  restoring  order,  he  saw  that 
it  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  difficult  and  perilous  to 
contend  against  the  rage  of  warriors,  who  regarded  the  fallen 
tyrant  as  their  foe,  and  as  the  foe  of  their  God. 

At  the  same  time,  it  became  more  evident  than  ever  that 
the  king  could  not  be  trusted.     The  vices  of  Charles   ha3 
grown  upon  him.     They  were,  indeed,  vices  which  difficulties 
VOL.  i.  9 


98  HISTOKS    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  perplexities  generally  bring  out  in  the  strongest  light 
Cunning  is  the  natural  defeice  of  the  weak.  A  prince,  there- 
fore, who  is  habitually  a  deceiver  when  at  the  height  of 
power,  is  not  likely  to  learn  frankness  in  the  midst  of  embar- 
rassments and  distresses.  Charles  was  not  only  a  most  unscru- 
pulous, but  a  most  unlucky  dissembler.  There  never  was  a 
politician  to  whom  so  many  frauds  and  falsehoods  were  brought 
home  by  undeniable  evidence.  He  publicly  recognized  the 
Houses  at  Westminster  as  a  legal  parliament,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  made  a  private  minute  in  council,  declaring  the  recogni- 
tion null.  He  publicly  disclaimed  all  thought  of  calling  in  for- 
eign aid  against  his  people:  he  privately  solicited  aid  from 
France,  from  Denmark,  and  from  Lorraine.  He  publicly 
denied  that  he  employed  Papists  :  at  the  same  time  he  private- 
ly sent  to  his  generals  directions  to  employ  every  Papist  that 
would  serve.  He  publicly  took  the  sacrament  at  Oxford,  as  a 
pledge  that  he  never  would  even  connive  at  Popery  :  he  pri- 
vately assured  his  wife  that  he  intended  to  tolerate  Popery  in 
England  ;  and  he  authorized  Lord  Glamorgan  to  promise  that 
Popery  should  be  established  in  Ireland.  Then  he  attempted 
to  clear  himself  at  his  agent's  expense.  Glamorgan  received, 
in  the  royal  handwriting,  reprimands  intended  to  be  read  by 
others,  and  eulogies  which  were  to  be  seen  only  by  himself.  To 
such  an  extent,  indeed,  had  insincerity  now  tainted  the  king's 
whole  nature,  that  his  most  devoted  friends  could  not  refrain 
from  complaining  to  each  other,  with  bitter  grief  and  shame,  of 
his  crooked  politics.  His  defeats,  they  said,  gave  them  less  pain 
than  his  intrigues.  Since  he  had  been  a  prisoner,  there  was 
no  section  of  the  victorious  party  which  had  not  been  the  ob- 
ject both  of  his  flatteries  and  of  his  machinations  :  but  never 
was  he  more  unfortunate  than  when  he  attempted  at  once  to 
cajole  and  to  undermine  Cromwell,  a  man  not  easily  to  be 
either  cajoled  or  undermined. 

Cromwell  had  to  determine  whether  he  would  put  to 
hazard  the  attachment  of  his  party,  the  attachment  of  his 
army,  his  own  greatness,  nay,  his  own  life,  in  an  attempt, 
which  would  probably  have  been  vain,  to  save  a  prince  whom 
no  engagement  could  bind.  With  many  struggles  and  mis 
givings,  and  probably  not  without  many  prayers,  the  decision 
was  made.  Charles  was  left  to  his  fate.  The  military  saints 
resolved  that,. in  defiance  of  the  old  laws  of  the  realm,  and 
•tof  the  almost  universal  sentiment  of  the  nation,  the  king 
should  expiate  his  crimes  with  his  blood  He  for  a  time  ex 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  99 

pected  a  death  like  that  of  his  unhappy  predecessors,  Edward 
the  Second  and  Richard  the  Second.  But  he  was  in  no  danger  of 
such  treason.  Those  who  had  him  in  their  gripe  were  not  mid- 
night stabbers.  What  they  did  they  did  in  order  that  it  might 
be  a  spectacle  to  heaven  and  earth,  and  that  it  might  be  held 
in  everlasting  remembrance.  They  enjoyed  keenly  the  very 
scandal  which  they  gave.  That  the  ancient  constitution  and 
the  public  opinion  of  England  were  directly  opposed  to  regi- 
cide, made  regicide  seem  strangely  fascinating  to  a  party  bent 
on  effecting  a  complete  political  and  social  revolution.  In  or- 
der to  accomplish  their  purpose,  it  was  necessary  that  they 
should  first  break  in  pieces  every  part  of  the  machinery  of  the 
government ;  and  this  necessity  was  rather  agreeable  than  pain- 
ful to  them.  The  Commons  passed  a  vote  tending  to  accom- 
modation with  the  king.  The  soldiers  excluded  the  majority 
by  force.  The  Lords  unanimously  rejected  the  proposition 
that  the  king  should  be  brought  to  trial.  Their  house  was  in- 
stantly closed.  No  court,  known  to  the  law,  would  take  on 
itself  the  office  of  judging  the  fountain  of  justice.  A  revolu- 
tionary tribunal  was  created.  That  tribunal  pronounced 
Charles  a  tyrant,  a  traitor,  a  murderer,  and  a  public  enemy  ; 
and  his  head, was  severed  from  his  shoulders  before  thousands 
of  spectators,  in  front  of  the  banqueting  hall  of  his  own  palace. 
In  no  long  time  it  became  manifest  that  those  political  and 
religious  zealots,  to  whom  this  deed  is  to  be  ascribed,  had 
committed,  not  only  a  crime,  but  an  error.  They  had  given 
to  a  prince,  hitherto  known  to  his  people  chiefly  by  his  faults, 
an  opportunity  of  displaying,  on  a  great  theatre,  before  the 
eyes  of  all  nations  and  all  ages,  some  qualities  which  irresis- 
tibly call  forth  the  admiration  and  love  of  mankind,  the  high 
spirit  of  a  gallant  gentleman,  the  patience  and  meekness  of  a 
penitent  Christian.  Nay,  they  had  so  contrived  their  revenge,  . 
that  the  very  man  whose  whole  life  had  been  a  series  of  at- 
tacks on  the  liberties  of  England  now  seemed  to  die  a  martyr 
in  the  cause  of  those  very  liberties.  No  demagogue  ever 
produced  such  an  impression  on  the  public  mind  as  the  cap- 
tive king  who,  retaining  in  that  extremity  all  his  regal  dignity, 
and  confronting  death  with  dauntless  courage,  gave  utterance 
to  the  feelings  of  his  oppressed  people,  manfully  refused  to 
plead  before  a  court  unknown  to  the  law,  appealed  from  mili- 
tary violence  to  the  principles  of  the  constitution,  asked  by 
what  right  the  House  -of  Commons  had  been  purged  of  its. 
most  respectable  members,  and  the  House  of  Lords  deprived 


100  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  its  legislative  functions,  and  told  his  weeping  hearers  that 
he  was  defending  not  only  his  own  cause,  but  theirs.  His 
long-  misgovernment,  his  innumerable  perfidies,  were  forgotten. 
His  memory  was  in  the  minds  of  the  great  majority  of  his 
subjects  associated  with  those  free  institutions  which  he  had, 
during  many  years,  labored  to  destroy  :  for  those  free  institu- 
tions had  perished  with  him,  and,  amidst  the  mournful  silence 
of  a  community  kept  down  by  arms,  had  been  defended  by 
his  voice  alone.  From  that  day  began  a  reaction  in  favoi 
of  monarchy  and  of  the  exiled  house,  a  reaction  which 
never  ceased  till  the  throne  had  again  been  set  up  in  all  its 
old  dignity. 

At  first,  however,  the  slayers  of  the  king  seemed  to  have 
derived  new  energy  from  that  sacrament  of  blood  by  which 
they  had  bound  themselves  closely  together,  and  separated 
themselves  forever  from  the  great  body  of  their  countrymen. 
England  was  declared  a  commonwealth.  The  House  of 
Commons,  reduced  to  a  small  number  of  members,  was  nom- 
inally the  supreme  power  in  the  state.  In  fact,  the  army  and 
its  great  chief  governed  every  thing.  Oliver  had  made  his 
choice.  He  had  kept  the  hearts  of  his  soldiery,  and  had 
broken  with  almost  every  other  class  of  his  fellow-citizens. 
Beyond  the  limits  of  his  camps  and  fortresses  he  could 
scarcely  be  said  to  have  a  party.  Those  elements  of  force 
which,  when  the  civil  war  broke  out,  had  appeared  arrayed 
against  each  other,  were  combined  against  him  ;  all  the  Cav- 
aliers, the  great  majority  of  the  Roundheads,  the  Anglican 
Church,  the  Presbyterian  Church,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
England,  Scotland,  Ireland.  Yet  such  was  his  genius  and 
resolution  that  he  was  able  to  overpower  and  crush  every  thing 
that  crossed  his  path,  to  make  himself  more  absolute  master 
of  his  country  than  any  of  her  legitimate  kings  had  been,  and 
to  make  his  country  more  dreaded  and  respected  than  she  had 
been  during  many  generations  under  the  rule  of  her  legitimate 
kings. 

England  had  already  ceased  to  struggle.  But  the  two 
other  kingdoms  which  had  been  governed  by  the  Stuarts  were 
hostile  to  the  new  republic.  The  Independent  party  was 
equally  odious  to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland,  and  to  the 
Presbyterians  of  Scotland.  Both  those  countries,  lately  in 
rebellion  against  Charles  the  First,  now  acknowledged  the 
t authority  of  Charles  the  Second. 

But  every  thing  yielded  to  the  vigor  and  ability  of  Crom 


HISTCRY    OF    ENGLAND.  101 

well.  In  a  few  months  he  subjugated  Ireland,  as  Ire' and  had 
never  been  subjugated  during  the  five  centuries  of  slaughter 
which  had  elapsed  since  the  landing  of  the  first  Norman  set- 
tlers. He  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  that  conflict  of  races  and 
religions  which  had  so  long  distracted  the  island,  by  making 
the  English  and  Protestant  population  decidedly  predominant. 
For  this  end  he  gave  the  rein  to  the  fierce  enthusiasm  of  his 
followers,  waged  war  resembling  that  which  Israel  waged  on 
the  Canaanites,  smote  the  idolaters  with  the  edge  of  the 
sword,  so  that  great  cities  were  left  without  inhabitants,  drove 
many  thousands  to  the  Continent,  shipped  off  many  thousands 
to  the  West  Indies,  and  supplied  the  void  thus  made  by  pour- 
ing in  numerous  colonists,  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  and  of 
the  Calvinistic  faith.  Strange  to  say,  under  that  iron  rule,  the 
conquered  country  began  to  wear  an  outward  face  of  pros- 
perity. Districts  which  had  recently  been  as  wild  as  those 
where  the  first  white  settlers  of  Connecticut  were  contending 
with  the  red  men,  were  in  a  few  years  transformed  into  the 
likeness  of  Kent  and  Norfolk.  New  buildings,  roads,  and 
plantations  were  every  where  seen.  The  rent  of  estates  rose 
fast ;  and  soon  the  English  landowners  began  to  complain  that 
they  were  met  in  every  market  by  the  products  of  Ireland, 
and  to  clamor  for  protecting  laws. 

From  Ireland  the  victorious  chief,  who  was  now  in  name, 
as  he  had  long  been  in  reality,  Lord  General  of  the  armies 
of  the  Commonwealth,  turned  to  Scotland.  The  young  king 
was  there.  He  had  consented  to  profess  himself  a  Pres- 
byterian, and  to  subscribe  the  covenant ;  and,  in  return  for 
these  concessions,  the  austere  Puritans  who  bore  sway  at 
Edinburgh  had  permitted  him  to  hold,  under  their  inspection 
and  control,  a  solemn  and  melancholy  court  in  the  long- 
deserted  halls  of  Holyrood.  This  mock  royalty  was  of  short 
duration.  In  two  great  battles  Cromwell  annihilated  the 
military  force  of  Scotland.  Charles  fled  for  his  life,  and, 
with  extreme  difficulty,  escaped  the  fate  of  his  father.  The 
ancient  kingdom  of  the  Stuarts  was  reduced,  for  the  first 
time,  to  profound  submission.  Of  that  independence,  so 
manfully  defended  against  the  mightiest  and  ablest  of  the 
Plantagenets,  no  vestige  was  left.  The  English  parliament 
made  laws  for  Scotland.  The  English  judges  held  assizes  in 
Scotland.  Even  that  stubborn  church,  which  has  held  its 
own  against  so  many  governments,,  scarce  dared  to  utter  an 
audible  murmur. 

9* 


102  HISTORY    CF    ENGLAND. 

Thus  far  there  had  been  at  least  the  semblance  of  harmony 
between  the  warriors  who  subjugated  Ireland  and  Scotland 
and  the  politicians  who  sate  at  Westminster ;  but  the  alliance 
which  had  been  cemented  by  danger  was  dissolved  by  victory  • 
The  parliament  forgot  that  it  was  but  the  creature  of  the 
army.  The  army  was  less  disposed  than  ever  to  submit  to 
the  dictation  of  the  parliament.  Indeed  the  few  members 
who  made  up  what  was  contemptuously  called  the  Rump  of 
the  House  of  Commons  had  no  more  claim  than  the  military 
chiefs  to  be  esteemed  the  representatives  of  the  nation.  The 
dispute  was  soon  brought  to  a  decisive  issue.  Cromwell 
filled  the  House  with  armed  men.  The  speaker  was  pulled 
out  of  his  chair,  the  mace  taken  from  the  table,  the  room 
cleared,  and  the  door  locked.  The  nation,  which  loved 
neither*  of  the  contending  parties,  but  which  was  forced, 
in  its  own  despite,  to  respect  the  capacity  and  resolution 
of  the  general,  looked  on  with  patience,  if  not  with  com- 
placency. 

King,  Lords,  and  Commons,  had  now  in  turn  been  van- 
quished and  destroyed ;  and  Cromwell  seemed  to  be  left  the 
sole  heir  of  the  powers  of  all  three.  Yet  were  certain  lim- 
itations still  imposed  on  him  by  the  very  army  to  which  he 
owed  his  immense  authority.  That  singular  body  of  men 
was,  for  the  most  part,  composed  of  zealous  republicans.  In 
the  act  of  enslaving  their  country,  they  had  deceived  them- 
selves into  the  belief  that  they  were  emancipating  her.  The 
book  which  they  most  venerated  furnished  them  with  a  pre- 
cedent which  was  frequently  in  their  mouths.  It  was  true 
that  the  ignorant  and  ungrateful  nation  murmured  against  its 
deliverers.  Even  so  had  another  chosen  nation  murmured 
against  the  leader  who  brought  it,  by  painful  and  dreary 
paths,  from  the  house  of  bondage  to  the  land  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey.  Yet  had  that  leader  rescued  his  brethren  in 
spite  of  themselves  ;  nor  had  he  shrunk  from  making  terrible 
examples  of  those  who  contemned  the  proffered  freedom, 
and  pined  for  the  fleshpots,  the  taskmaskers,  and  the 
idolatries  of  Egypt.  The  object  of  the  warlike  saints  who 
surrounded  Cromwell  was  the  settlement  of  a  free  and  pious 
commonweath.  For  that  end  they  were  ready  to  employ, 
without  scruple,  any  means,  however  vioient  and  lawless.  It 
was  not  impossible,  therefore,  to  establish  by  their  aid  a 
monarchy  absolute  in  effect ;  but  it  was  probable  that  theii 
«jd  would  be  at  once  withdrawn  from  a  ruler  who,  even  undei 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  103 

strict  constitutional  restraints,  should  venture  to  assume  the 
regal  name  and  dignity.       ' 

The  sentiments  of  Cromwell  were  widely  different.  He 
was  not  what  he  had  been  ;  nor  would  it  be  just  to  consider 
the  change  which  his  views  had  undergone,  as  the  effect 
merely  of  selfish  ambition.  When  he  came  up  to  the  Long 
Parliament,  he  brought  with  him  from  his  rural  retreat  little 
knowledge  of  books,  no  experience  of  great  affairs,  and  a 
temper  galled  by  the  long  tyranny  of  the  government  and  of 
the  hierarchy.  He  had,  during  the  thirteen  years  which  fol- 
lowed, gone  through  a  political  education  of  no  common  kind. 
He  had  been  a  chief  actor  in  a  succession  of  revolutions. 
He  had  been  long  the  soul,  and  at  last  the  head  of  a  party. 
He  had  commanded  armies,  won  battles,  negotiated  treaties, 
subdued,  pacified,  and  regulated  kingdoms.  It  would  have 
been  strange  indeed  if  his  notions  had  been  still  the  same  as 
in  the  days  when  his  mind  was  principally  occupied  by  his 
fields  and  his  religion,  and  when  the  greatest  events  which 
diversified  the  course  of  his  life  were  a  cattle  fair,  or  a  prayer- 
meeting  at  Huntingdon.  He  saw  that  some  schemes  of  in- 
novation for  which  he  had  once  been  zealous,  whether  good 
or  Bad  in  themselves,  were  opposed  to  the  general  feeling  of 
the  country,  and  that,  if  he  persevered  in  those  schemes,  he 
had  nothing  before  him  but  constant  troubles,  which  must  be 
suppressed  by  the  constant  use  of  the  sword.  He  therefore 
wished  to  restore,  in  all  essentialsjjhat,  ajocjerrt  constitution 
which  the  majority  of  the  people  had  always  loved,  and  for 
which  they  now  pined.  The  course  afterwards  taken  by  Monk, 
was  not  open  to  Cromwell.  The  memory  of  one  terrible  day 
separated  the  great  regicide  forever  from  the  House  of  Stuart. 
What  remained  was,  that  he  should  mount  the  ancient  English 
throne,  and  reign  according  to  the  ancient  English  polity.  If 
he  could  effect  this,  he  might  hope  that  the  wounds  of  the 
lacerated  state  should  heal  fast.  Great  numbers  of  honest 
and  quiet  men  would  speedily  rally  round  him.  Those  roy- 
alists whose  attachment  was  rather  to  institutions  than  to  per- 
sons, to  the  kingly  office  than  to  Kii  g  Charles  the  First  or ' 
King  Charles  the  Second,  would  soon  Kiss  the  hand  of  King 
Oliver.  The  peersj__who.  now  jemained  sullenly  at  their 
country  housesTand  refused  to  take  any  part, in  public  affairs, 
would,  when  summoned  to  their  House  by  the  writ  of  a  king 
in  possession,  gladly  resume  their  ancient  functions.  North- 
umberland and  Bedford,  Manchester  and  Pembroke,  would 


104  HISTDRY    OF    ENGLAND 

be  proud  to  bear  the  crown  and  the  spurs,  the  sceptre  and  the 
globe,  before  the  restorer  of  aristocracy.  A  sentiment  of 
loyalty  would  gradually  bind  the  people  to  the  new  dynasty 
and,  on  the  decease  of  the  founder  of  that  dynasty,  the  royal 
dignity  might  descend  with  general  acquiescence  to  his  pos- 
terity. 

1  he  ablest  royalists  were  of  opinion  that  these  views  were 
con^ct,  and  that,  if  Cromwell  had  been  permitted  to  follow 
his  own  judgment,  the  exiled  line  would  never  have  been 
restored.  But  his  plan  was  directly  opposed  to  the  feelings  of 
the  only  class  which  he  dared  not  offend.  The  name  of  king 
was  hateful  to  the  soldiers.  Some  of  them  were  indeed 
unwilling  to  see  the  administration  in  the  hands  of  any  single 
person.  The  great  majority,  however,  were  disposed  to  sup- 
port their  general  as  elective  first  magistrate  of  a  common- 
wealth, against  all  factions  which  might  resist  his  authority ; 
but  they  would  not  consent  that  he  should  assume  the  regal 
title,  or  that  the  dignity,  which  was  the  just  reward  of  his  per- 
sonal merit,  should  be  declared  hereditary  in  his  family.  All 
that  was  left  to  him  was,  to  give  to  the  new  republic  a  consti- 
tution as  like  the  constitution  of  the  old  monarchy  as  the  army 
would  bear.  That  his  elevation  to  power  might  not  seem  to 
be  his  own  mere  act,  he  convoked,  a  council,  composed  partly 
of  persons  on  whose  support  he  could  depend,  and  partly  of 
persons  whose  opposition  he  might  safely  defy.  This  assem- 
bly, which  he  called  a  parliament,  and  which  the  populace 
nicknamed,  from  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  members, 
Barebone's  Parliament,  after  exposing  itself,  during  a  short 
time,  to  the  public  contempt,  surrendered  back  to  the  general 
the  powers  which  it  had  received  from  him,  and  left  him  at  lib- 
erty to  frame  a  plan  of  government. 

His  plan  bore,  from  the  first,  a  considerable  resemblance  to 
the  old  English  constitution ;  but,  in  a  few  years,  he  thought 
it  safe  to  proceed  further,  and  to  restore  almost  every  part  of 
the  ancient  system  under  new  names  and  forms.  The  title  of 
king  was  not  revived  ;  but  the  kingly  prerogatives  were 
intrusted  to  a  lord  high  protector.  The  sovereign  was  called, 
not  His  Majesty,  but  His  Highness.  He  was  not  crowned  and 
anointed  in  Westminster-  Abbey,  but  was  solemnly  enthroned, 
girt  with  a  sword  of  state,  clad  in  a  -obe  of  purple,  and  pre- 
sented with  a  rich  Bible,  in  Westminster  Hall.  His  office  was 
not  declared  hereditaiy ;  but  he  was  permitted  to  name  hisi 
successor ;  and  none  could  doubt  that  he  would  name  his  son. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  105 

A  House  of  Commons  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  new 
polity.  In  constituting  this  body,  the  Protector  showed  a  wis- 
dom and  a  public  spirit  which  were  not  duly  appreciated  by 
his  contemporaries.  The  vices  of  the  old  representative  sys- 
tem, though  by  no  means  so  serious  as  they  afterwards  be- 
came, had  already  been  remarked  by  far-sighted  men.  Crom- 
well reformed  that  system  on  the  same  principles  on  which 
Mr.  Pitt,  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  later,  attempted  to  reform 
it,  and  on  which  it  was  at  length  reformed  in  our  own  times. 
Small  boroughs  were  disfranchised  even  more  unsparingly 
than  in  1832 ;  and  the  number  of  county  members  was  greatly 
increased.  Very  few  unrepresented  towns  had  yet  grown 
into  importance.  Of  those  towns,  the  most  considerable  were 
Manchester,  Leeds,  and  Halifax.  Representatives  were  giv-n 
to  all  three.  An  addition  was  made  to  the  number  of  the 
members  for  the  capital.  The  elective  franchise  was  placed 
on  such  a  footing,  that  every  man  of  substance,  whether  pos- 
sessed of  freehold  estates  in  land  or  not,  had  a  vote  for  the 
county  in  which  he  resided.  A  few  Scotchmen  and  a  few  of 
the  English  colonists  settled  in  Ireland,  were  summoned  to  the 
assembly  which  was  to  legislate,  at  Westminster,  for  every 
part  of  the  British  isles. 

To  create  a  House  of  Lords  was  a  less  easy  task.  Democ- 
racy does  not  require  the  support  of  prescription.  Monarchy 
has  often  stood  without  that  support.  But  a  patrician  order  is 
the  work  of  time.  Oliver  found  already  existing  a  nobility, 
opulent,  highly  considered,  and  as  popular  with  the  common- 
alty as  any  nobility  has  ever  been.  Had  he,  as  king  of 
England,  commanded  the  peers  to  meet  him  in  parliament 
according  to  the  old  usage  of  the  realm,  many  of  them 
would  undoubtedly  have  obeyed  the  call.  This  he  could  no* 
do ;  and  it  was  to  no  purpose  that  he  offered  to  the  chiefs  of 
illustrious  families  seats  in  his  new  senate.  They  conceived 
that  they  could  not  accept  a  nomination  to  an  upstart  assembly 
without  renouncing  their  birthright  and  betraying  their  order. 
The  Protector  was .^therefore,  under  the  necessity  of  filling 
the  Upper  House  with  new  men,  who,  during  the  late  stirring 
times,  had  made  themselves  conspicuous.  This  was  the  least 
happy  of  his  contrivances,  and  displeased  all  parties.  The 
levellers  were  angry  with  him  for  instituting  a  privileged  class. 
The  multitude,  which  felt  respect  and  fondness  for  the  great 
historical  names~of~the  land,  laughed  without  restraint  at  a 
House  of  Lords,  in  which  lucky  draymen  and  shoemakers 

9* 


.U(>  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

wore  seated,  to  which  few  of  the  old  nobles  were  invited,  ai  J 
from  which  almost  all  those  old  nobles  who  were  invited  turned 
disdainfully  away. 

How  Oliver's  parliaments  were  constituted,  however,  wai 
practically  of  little  moment ;  for  he  possessed  the  means  t/f 
conducting  the  administration  without  their  support,  and  in 
defiance  of  their  opposition.  His  wish  seems  to  have  been  to 
govern  constitutionally,  anj  tn  substitute  the  empire  of  the 
laws  for  that  of  the  sword.  But  he  soon  found  that,  hated  as 
he  was  both  by  royalists  and  Presbyterians,  he  could  be  safe 
only  by  being  absolute.  The  first  House  of  Commons  which 
the  -people  elected'  by  his  command,  questioned  his  authority, 
and  was  dissolved  without  having  passed  a  single  act.  His 
second  House  of  Commons,  though  it  recognized  him  as  Pro- 
tector, and  would  gladly  have  made  him  king,  obstinately 
refused  to  acknowledge  his  new  lords.  He  had  no  course  left 
but  to  dissolve  the  parliament.  "  God,"  he  exclaimed,  at  part- 
ing, "  be  judge  between  you  and  me  !  " 

Yet  was  the  energy  of  the  Protector's  administration  in  no 
wise  relaxed  by  these  dissensions.  Those  soldiers  who  would 
not  suffer  him  to  assume  the  kingly  title  stood  by  him  when 
he  ventured  on  acts  of  power  as  high  as  any  English  king  has 
ever  attempted.  The  government,  therefore,  though  in  form 
a  republic,  was  in  truth  a  despotism,  moderated  only  by  the 
wisdom,  the  sobermindedness,  and  the  magnanimity,  of  the 
despot.  The  country  was-drvi dcd  into  military  districts  ;  those 
districts  were  placed  under  the  command  of  Major-Generals. 
Every  insurrectionary  movement  was  promptly  put  down  and 
punished.  The  fear  inspired  by  the  power  of  tine  sword  in  so 
strong,  steady,  and  expert  a  hand,  quelled  the  spirit  both  of 
Cavaliers  and  levellers.  The  loyal  gentry  declared  that  they 
were  still  as  ready  as  ever  to  risk  their  lives  for  the  old  gov- 
ernment and  the  old  dynasty,  if  there  were  the  slightest  hope 
of  success ;  but  to  rush  at  the  head  of  their  serving  men  and 
tenants  on  the  pikes  of  brigades  victorious  in  a  hundred  bat- 
tles and  sieges,  would  be  a  frantic  waste  of  innocent  and  hon- 
orable blood.  Both  Royalists  t\pd  Republicans,  having  no  hope 
in  open  resistance,  began  to  revolve  dark  schemes  of  assassi- 
nation ;  tfuF  the  Protector's  intelligence. -was- good  ;  his  vigi- 
lance was  unremitting ;  and,  whenever  he  moved  beyond  the 
walls  of  his  palace,  the  drawn  swords  and  cuirasses  of  hi* 
trusty  body-guards  encompassed  him  thick  on  every  side. 

Had  he  been  a  cruel,  licentious,  and  rapacious  prince,  tho 


HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND.  107 

nation  might  havo  found  courage  in  despair,  and  might  have 
made  a  convulsive  effort  to  free  itself  from  military  domina- 
tion. But  the  grievances  which  the  country  suffered,  though 
such  as  excited  serious  discontent,  were  by  no  means  such  as 
impel  great  masses  of  men  to  stake  their  lives,  their  fortunes, 
and  the  welfare  of  their  families,  against  fearful  odds.  The 
taxation,  though  hp.ayjgr  than  JLljad  been  under  the  Stuarts, 
was  not  heavy  when*  compared  with  that  of  the  neighboring 
states  and  with  the  resources  of  England.  Property  was 
secure.  Even  the  Cavalier,  who  refrained  from  giving  dis- 
turbance to  the  new  settlement,  enjoyed  in  peace  whatever  the 
civil  troubles  had  left  him.  The  laws  were  violated  only 
in  cases  where  the  safety  of  the  Protector's  person  and  gov- 
ernment were  concerned.  Justice  was  administered  between 
man  and  man  with  an  exactness  and  purity  not  before  known. 
Under  no  English  government,  since  the  Reformation,  had 
there  been  so  little  religious  persecution.  The  unfortunate 
Roman  Catholics,  indeed,  were  held  to  be  scarcely  within  the 
pale  of  Christian  charity.  But  the  clergy  of  the  fallen  Angli- 
can Church  were  suffered  to  celebrate  their  worship  on  con- 
dition that  they  would  abstain  from  preaching  about  politics. 
Even  the  Jews,  whose  public  worship  had,  ever  since  the 
thirteenth  century,  been  interdicted,  were,  in  spite  of  the 
strong  opposition  of  jealous  traders  and  fanatical  theologians, 
permitted  to  build  a  synagogue  in  London. 

The  Protector's  foreign  policy  at  the  same  time  extorted  the 
ungracious  approbation  of  those  who  most 'detested  him.  The 
Cavaliers  could  scarcely  refrain  from  wishing  that  one  who 
had  done  so  much  to  raise  the  fame  of  the  nation  had  been  a 
legitimate  king ;  and  the  republicans  were  forced  to  own  that 
the  tyrant  suffered  none  but  himself  to  wrong  his  country,  and 
that,  if  he  had  robbed  her  of  liberty,  he  had  at  least  given 
her  glory  in  exchange.  After  half  a  century,  during  which 
England  had  been  of  scarcely  more  weight  in  European  poli- 
tics than  Venice  or  Saxony,  she  at  once  became  the  most  for- 
midable power  in  the  world,  dictated  terms  of  peace  to  the 
United  Provinces,  avenged  the  common  injuries  of  Christen- 
dom on  the  pirates  of  Barbary,  vanquished  the  Spaniards  by 
land  and  sea,  seized  one  of  the  finest  West  India  islands,  and 
acquired  on  the  Flemish  coast  a  fortress  which  consoled  the 
national  pride  for  the  loss  of  Calais.  She  was  supreme  or 
the  ocean.  She  was  the  head  of  the  Protestant  interest.  Al1 
the  reformed  churches  scattered  over  Roman  Catholic  king 


108  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

doms  acknowl edged  Cromwell  as  their  guardian.  The  Hu- 
guenots of  Languedoc,  the  shepherds  who,  in  the  hamlets  of 
the  Alps,  professed  a  Protestantism  older  than  that  of  Augs- 
burg, were  secured  from  oppression  by  the  mere  terror  of  that 
great  name.  The  pope  himself  was  forced  to  preach  humanity 
and  moderation  to  Popish  princes.  For  a  voice  which  seldom 
threatened  in  vain  had  declared  that,  unless  favor  were  shown 
to  the  people  of  God,  the  English  guns  should  be  heard  in  the 
Castle  of  Saint  Angelo.  In  truth,  there  was  nothing  which 
Cromwell  had,  for  his  own  sake  and  that  of  his  family,  so  much 
reason  to  desire  as  a  general  religious  war  in  Europe.  In 
such  a  war  he  must  have  been  the  captain  of  the  Protestanl 
armies.  The  heart  of  England  would  have  been  with  him 
His  victories  would  have  been  hailed  with  a  unanimous  enthu 
siasm  unknown  in  the  country  since  the  rout  of  the  Armada 
and  would  have  effaced  the  stain  which  one  act,  condemned 
by  the  general  voice  of  the  nation,  has  left  on  his  splendid 
fame.  Unhappily  for  him  he  had  no  opportunity  of  display 
ing  his  admirable  military  talents,  except  against  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  British  isles. 

While  he  lived  his  power  stood  firm,  an  object  of  mingled 
aversion,  admiration,  and  dread  to  his  subjects.  Few  indeed 
loved  his  government ;  but  those  who  hated  it  most  hated  il 
less  than  they  feared  it.  Had  it  been  a  worse  government,  il 
might  perhaps  have  been  overthrown  in  spite  of  all  its  strength. 
Had  it  been  a  weaker  government,  it  would  certainly  have 
been  overthrown  in  spite  of  all  its  merits.  But  it  had  modera- 
tion enough  to  abstain  from  those  oppressions  which  drive  men 
mad ;  and  it  had  a  force  and  energy  which  none  but  men 
driven  mad  by  oppression  would  venture  to  encounter. 

It  has  often  been  affirmed,  but  apparently  with  little  reason, 
Jiat  Oliver  died  at  a  time  fortunate  for  his  renown,  and  that, 
if  his  life  had  been  prolonged,  it  would  probably  have  closed 
amidst  disgraces  and  disasters.  It  is  certain  that  he  was,  to 
the  last,  honored  by  his  soldiers,  obeyed  by  the  whole  popula 
tion  of  the  British  islands,  and  dreaded  by  all  foreign  powers, 
that  he  was  laid  among  the  ancient  sovereigns  of  England 
with  funeral  pomp  such  as  London  had  never  before  seen 
and  that  he  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Richard  as  quietly  as 
any  king  had  ever  been  succeeded  by  any  prince  of  Wales. 

Ouring  five  months,  the  administration  of  Richard  Cromwel! 
went  on  so  tranquilly  and  regularly  that  all  Europe  believed 
him  to  be  firmly  established  on  the  chair  of  state.  In  truth 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  100 

his  situation  was  in  some  respects  much  more  advantageous 
than  that  of  his  father.  The  young  man  had  made  no  enemy. 
His  hands  were  unstained  by  civil  blood.  The  Cavaliers 
themselves  allowed  him  to  be  an  honest,  good-natured  gentle- 
man. The  Presbyterian  party,  powerful  both  in  numbers  and 
in  wealth,  had  been  at  deadly  feud  with  the  late  Protector,  but 
was  disposed  to  regard  the  present  Protector  with  favor.  That 
party  had  always  been  desirous  to  see  the  old  civil  polity  of 
the  realm  restored,  with  some  clearer  definitions  and  some 
stronger  safeguards  for  public  liberty,  but  had  many  reasons 
for  dreading  the  restoration  of  the  old  family.  Richard  was 
the  very  man  for  politicians  of  this  description.  His  human 
ity,  ingenuousness,  and  modesty,  the  mediocrity  of  his  abili 
ties,  and  the  docility  with  which  he  submitted  to  the  guidance 
of  persons  wiser  than  himself,  admirably  qualified  him  to  be 
the  head  of  a  limited  monarchy. 

For  a  time  it  seemed  highly  probable  that  he  would,  under 
the  direction  of  able  advisers,  effect  what  his  father  had  at- 
tempted in  vain.  A  parliament  was  called,  and  the  writs  were 
directed  after  the  old  fashion.  The  small  boroughs  which 
had  recently  been  disfranchised,  regained  their  lost  privilege  : 
Manchester,  Leeds,  and  Halifax  ceased  to  return  members  ; 
and  the  county  of  York  was  again  limited  to  two  knights.  It 
may  seem  strange  to  a  genera  ,on  which  has  been  excited  al- 
most to  madness  by  the  question  of  parliamentary  reform,  that 
great  shires  and  towns  should  have  submitted  with  patience, 
and  even  with  complacency,  to  this  change :  but  though  re- 
flecting men  could,  even  in  that  age,  discern  the  vices  of  the 
old  representative  system,  snd  foresee  that  those  vices  would, 
sooner  or  later,  produce  rerious  practical  evil,  the  practical 
evil  had  not  yet  been  much  felt.  Oliver's  representative  sys- 
tem, on  .the_pther  hnnH1  thnnrrh  rnnstnir«t«=t<j[  nn  thp.  soiirutegt 

principles,  was  not  popular^  Roth  thfi  flvftTtts-Jn. -whip.h  it  origi- 
nated, and  the  effects  which  it  had  prpduce4t  prejudiced  mer 
against  it.  It  had  sprung  from  military  violence.  It  had  been 
fruitful  of  nothing  but  disputes.  The  whole  nation  was  sick 
of  government  by  the  sword,  and  pined  forgpvernment  by  the 
law.  The  restoration,  therefore ,~even"of  anomalies  and  abuses, 
which  were  in  strict  conform'*-  with  the  law,  and  which  had 
been  destroyed  by  the  sw  gave  general  satisfaction. 

Among  the  Comr'-rfrf  there  was  a  strong  opposition,  con- 
sisting partly  of  avowed  Republicans,  and  partly  of  concealed 
Royalists ;  but  a  large  and  steady  majority  appeared  to  be  fa- 
VOL.  i.  10 


110  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

vorable  to  the  plan  of  reviving  the  old  civil  constitution  undei 
a  new  dynasty.  Richard  was  solemnly  recognized  as  first 
magistrate.  The  Commons  not  only  consented  to  transact 
business  with  Oliver's  Lords,  but  passed  a  vote  acknowledging 
the  right  of  those  nobles,  who  had  in  the  late  troubles  taken 
the  side  of  public  liberty,  to  sit  in  the  upper  house  of  parlia- 
ment without  any  new  creation. 

Thus  far  the  statesmen  by  whose  advice  Richard  acted  had 
been  successful.  Almost  all  the  parts  of  the  government  were 
now  constituted  as  they  had  been  constituted  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  civil  war.  Had  the  Protector  and  the  Parliament 
been  suffered  to  proceed  undisturbed,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  an  order  of  things  similar  to  that  which  was  afterwards 
established  under  the  House  of  Hanover  would  have  been  es 
rablished  under  the  House  of  Cromwell.  But  there  was  in  the 
state  a  power  more  than  sufficient  to  deal  with  Protector  and 
Parliament  together.  Over  .the  soldiers  Richard  had  no  au- 
thority except  that  which  he  derived  from  the  great  name  which 
lie  had  inherited.  He  had  never  led  them  to  victory.  He 
had  never  even  borne  arms.  All  his  tastes  and  habits  were 
pacific.  Nor  were  his  opinions  and  feelings  on  religious  sub- 
jects approved  by  the  military  saints.  That  he  was  a  good 
man  he  evinced  by  proofs  more  satisfactory  than  deep  groans 
or  long  sermons,  by  humility  and  suavity,  when  he  was  at  the 
height  of  human  greatness,  by  cheerful  resignation  under  cruel 
wrongs  and  misfortunes  :  but  the  cant  then  common  in  every 
guard-room  gave  him  a  disgust  which  he  had  not  always  the 
prudence  to  conceal.  The  officers  who  had  the  principal  in- 
fluence among  the  troops  stationed  near  London  were  not  his 
friends.  They  were  men  distinguished  by  valor  and  conduct 
in  the  field,  but  destitute  of  the  wisdom  and  civil  courage  which 
had  been  conspicuous  in  their  deceased  leader.  Some  of  them 
were  honest,  but  fanatical,  Independents  and  Republicans. 
Of  this  class  Fleetwood  was  the  representative.  Others  were 
impatient  to  be  what  Oliver  had  been.  His  rapid  elevation, 
his  prosperity  and  gloiy,  his  inauguration  in  the  hall,  and  his 
gorgeous  obsequies  in  the  abbey,  had  inflamed  their  imagina- 
tion. They  were  as  well  born  as  he,  and  as  well  educated  : 
they  could  not  understand  why  they  were  not  as  worthy  to 
wear  the  purple  robe,  and  to  wield  the  sword  of  state ;  and 
they  pursued  the  objects  of  their  wild  ambition,  not,  like  nim, 
with  patience,  vigilance,  sagacity,  and  determination,  but  with 
the  restlessness  and  irresolu  ion  characteristic  of  aspiring  me- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  Ill 

diocrity.     Among  these  feeble  copies  of  a  great  original  the 
most  conspicuous  was  Lambert. 

On  the  vely  day  of  Richard's  accession  the  officers  began 
to  conspire  against  their  new  master.  The  good  understand- 
ing which  existed  between  him  and  his  parliament  hastened 
the  crisis.  Alarm  and  resentment  spread  through  the  camp. 
Both  the  religious  and  the  professional  feelings  of  the  army 
were  deeply  wounded.  It  seemed  that  the  Independents  were 
to  be  subjected  to  the  Presbyterians,  and  that  the  men  of  the 
f?word  were  to  be  subjected  to  the  men  of  the  gown.  A  coali- 
tion wTRT  formed  between  the  military  malcontents  and  the 
republican  minority  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  may  well 
be  doubted  whether  Richard  could  have  triumphed  over  that 
coalition  even  if  he  had  inherited  his  father's  clear  judgment 
and  iron  courage.  It  is  certain  that  simplicity  and  meekness 
like  his  were  not  the  qualities  which  the  conjuncture  required. 
He  fell  ingloriously  and  without  a  struggle.  He  was  used 
by  the  army  as  an  instrument  for  the  purpose  of  dissolving 
the  Parliament,  and  was  then  contemptuously  thrown  aside. 
The  officers  gratified  their  republican  allies  by  declaring  that 
the  expulsion  of  the  Rump  had  been  illegal,  and  by  inviting 
that  assembly  to  resume  its  functions.  The  old  speaker  and 
a  quorulrr~oFTlreT"ord  ^members  came  together  and  were  pro- 
claimed, amidst  the  scarcely  stifled  derision  and  execration  of 
the  whole  nation,  the  supreme  power  in  the  state.  It  was  at 
the  same  time  expressly  declared  that  there  should  be  no  first 
magistrate,  and  no  House  of  Lords. 

But  this  state  of  things  could  not  last.  On  the  day  on 
which  the  Long  Parliament  revived,  revived  also  its  old  quar- 
rel with  the  army.  Again  the  Rump  forgot  that  it  owed  its 
existence  to  the  pleasure  of  the  soldiers,  and  began  to  trea! 
them  as  subjects.  Again  the  doors  of  the  House  of  Commons 
were  closed  by  military  violence ;  and  a  provisional  govern- 
ment, named  by  the  officers,  assumed  the  direction  of  affairs. 

Meanwhile  the  sense  of  great  evils,  and  the  strong  appre- 
hension of  still  greater  evils  close  at  hand,  had  at  length  pro 
duced  an  alliance  between  the  Cavaliers  and  the  Presbyte- 
rians. Some  Presbyterians  had,  indeed,  been  disposed  to 
such  an  alliance  even  before  tha  death  of  Charles  the 
First :  but  it  was  not  till  after  the  fall  of  Richard  Cromwell 
that  the  whole  party  became  eager  for  the  restoration  of  the 
royal  house.  There  was  no  longer  any  reasonable  hope  that 
ihe  old  constitution  could  be  reestablished  under  a  new  dynas- 


112  HISTORY    Ol    JTNGLAND. 

ty.  "  One  choice  '  nty  was  left,  the  Stuarts  or  the  army  The 
banished  family  Had  committed'great  faults  ;  but  at  had  dearly 
expiated  those  faults,  and  had  undergone  a  long,  and,  i  might 
be  hoped,  a  salutary  training  in  the  school  of  adversity.  It 
was  probable  that  Charles  the  Second  would  take  warning  by 
the  fate  of  Charles  the  First.  But,  be  this  as  it  might,  the 
dangers  which  threatened  the  country  were  such  that,  in  order 
to  avert  them,  some  opinions  might  well  be  compromised,  and 
some  risks  might  well  be  incurred.  It  seemed  but  too  likely 
that  England  would  fall  under  the  most  odious  and  degrading 
of  all  kinds  of  government,  under  a  government  uniting  all 
the  evils  of  despotism  to  all  the  e-.ils  of .. anarchy.  Any  thing 
was  preferable  to  the  yoke  of  &  succession  of  incapable  and 
inglorious  tyrants,  raised  to  power,  like  the  Deys  of  Barbary, 
by  military  revolutions  recurring  at  short  intervals.  Lambert 
seemed  likely  to  be  the  f./st  of  these  rulers  ;  but  within  a 
year  Lambert  might  give  place  to  Desborough,  and  Des- 
borough  to  Harrison.  As  often  as  the  truncheon  was  trans- 
ferred from  one  feeble  hand  to  another,  the  nation  would  be 
pillaged  for  the  purpose  of  bestowing  a  fresh  donative  on  the 
troops.  If  the  Presbyterians  obstinately  stood  aloof  from  the 
Royalists,  the  state  was  lost ;  and  men  might  well  doubt 
whether,  by  the  combined  exertions  of  Presbyterians  and 
Royalists,  it  could  be  saved.  For  the  dread  of  that  invincible 
army  was  on  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  island ;  and  the 
Cavaliers,  taught  by  a  hundred  disastrous  fields  how  little 
numbers  can  effect  against  discipline,  were  even  more  com- 
oletely  cowed  than  the  Roundheads. 

While  the  soldiers  remained  united,  all  the  plots  and  risings 
rf  the  malcontents  were  ineffectual.  But  a  few  days  after  the 
secondexpjjlsioja^of  the  Rump,  came  tidings  which  gladdened 
he  ^hearts  of  all  who  were  attached  either  to  monarchy  or  to 
liberty.  That  mighty  force  which  had  during  many  years 
acted  as  one  man,  and  which,  while  so  acting,  had  been  found 
irresistible,  was  at  length  divided  against  itself.  The  army  of 
Scotland  had  done  good  service  to  the  Commonwealth,  and 
was  in  the  highest  state  of  efficiency.  It  had  borne  no  part 
in  the  late  revolutions,  and  had  seen  them  with  indignation 
resembling  the  indignation  which  the  Roman  legions  posted 
on  the  Danube  and  the  Euphrates  felt,  when  they  learned  that 
the  empire  had  been  put  up  to  sale  by  the  praetorian  guards. 
It  was  intolerable  that  certain  regiments  should,  merely  be- 
cause they  happened  to  be  quartered  near  Westminster,  take 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  113 

on  themselves  to  make  and  unmake  several  governments  in 
he  course  of  half  a  year.  If  it  were  fit  that  the  state  should 
be  regulated  by  the  soldiers,  those  soldiers  who  upheld  the 
English  ascendency  on  the  north  of  the  Tweed  were  as  well 
entitled  to  a  voice  as  those  who  garrisoned  the  Tower  of  Lon- 
don. There  appears  to  have  been  less  fanaticism  among  the 
troops  stationed  in  Scotland  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  army ; 
and  their  general,  George  Monk,  was  himself  the  very  oppo- 
site of  a  zealot.  He  had,  at  the  commencement  of  the  civil 
war,  borne  arms  for  the  king,  had  been  made  prisoner  by  the 
Roundheads,  had  then  accepted  a  commission  from  the  Par- 
liament, and,  with  very  slender  pretensions  to  saintship,  had 
raised  himself  to  high  commands  by  his  courage  and  profes- 
sional skill.  He  had  been  a  useful  servant  to  both  the  Pro- 
tectors, had  quietly  acquiesced  when  the  officers  at  Westmin- 
ster pulled  down  Richard  and  restored  the  Long  Parliament, 
and  would  perhaps  have  acquiesced  as  quietly  in  the  second 
expulsion  of  the  Long  Parliament,  if  the  provisional  govern- 
ment had  abstained  from  giving  him  cause  of  offence  and 
apprehension.  For  his  nature  was  cautious  and  somewhat 
sluggish ;  nor  was  he  at  all  disposed  to  hazard  sure  and  mod- 
erate advantages  for  the  chance  of  obtaining  even  the  most 
splendid  success.  He  seems  to  have  been  impelled  to  attack 
the  new  rulers  of  the  commonwealth  less  by  the  hope  that,  if 
he  overthrew  them,  he  should  become  great,  than  by  the  fear 
that,  if  he  submitted  to  them,  he  should  not  even  be  secure. 
Whatever  were  his  motives,  he  declared  himself  the  champion 
of  the  oppressed  civil  power,  refused  to  acknowledge  the 
usurped  authority  of  the  provisional  government,  and,  at  the 
head  of  seven  thousand  veterans,  marched  into  England. 

This  step  was  the  signal  for  a  general  explosion.  The  peo- 
ple every  where  refused  to  pay  taxes.  The  apprentices  of  the 
city  assembled  by  thousands  and  clamored  for  a  free  parlia- 
ment. The  fleet  sailed  up  the  Thames,  and  declared  against 
the  tyranny  of  the  soldiers.  The  soldiers,  no  longer  under 
the  control  of  one  commandingjrnind,  separated  into  factions 
Every  regiment,  afraid  lest  it  should  be  left  alone  a  mark  for 
the  vengeance  of  the-  oppressed  nation,  hastened  to  make  a 
separate  peace.  Lambert,  who  had  hastened  northward  to 
encounter  the  army  of  Scotland,  was  abandoned  by  his  troops, 
and  became  a  prisoner.  During  thirteen  years  the  civil  power 
hatpin  every  conflict,  been  compelled  to  yield  to  the  military 
power.  The~"military  power  now  humbled  itself  before  the 
10* 


1  14  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

civil  power.  The  Rump,  generally  hated  and  despised,  bu; 
still  the  only  body  in  the  country  whi^h  had  any  show  of  legal 
authority,  returned  again  to  the  house  from  which  it  had  been 
twice  ignominiously  expelled. 

In  the  mean  time  Monk  was  advancing  towards  London. 
Wherever  he  came,  the  gentry  flocked  round  him,  imploring 
him  to  use  his  power  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace  and 
liberty  to  the  distracted  nation.  The  general,  cold-blooded, 
taciturn,  zealous  for  no  polity  and  for  no  religion,  maintained 
an  impenetrable  reserve.  What  were  at  this  time  his  plans, 
and  whether  he  had  any  plan,  may  well  be  doubted.  His  great 
object,  apparently,  was  to  keep  himself,  as  long  as  possible, 
free  to  choose  between  several  lines  of  action.  Such,  indeed, 
is  commonly  the  policy  of  men  who  are,  like  him,  distinguished 
rather  by  wariness  than  by  far-sightedness.  It  was  probably 
not  till  he  had  been  some  days  in  the  capital  that  he  made  up 
his  mind.  The  cry  of  the  whole  people  was  for  a  free  par- 
liament ;  and  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  a  parliament  really 
free  would  instantly  restore  the  exiled  family.  The  Rump 
and  the  soldiers  were  still  hostile  to  the  House  of  Stuart.  But 
the  Rump  was  universally  detested  and  despised.  ~The  power 
of  the  soldiers  was  indeed  still  formidable,  but  had  been 
greatly  diminished  by  discord.  They  had  no  head.  They 
had  recently  been,  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  arrayed 
against  each  other.  On  the  very  day  before  Monk  reached 
London,  there  was  a  fight  in  the  Strand  between  the  cavalry 
and  the  infantry.  A  united  army  had  long  kept  down  a 
divided  nation  ;  but  the  nation  was  now  united,  and  the  army 
was  divided. 

During  a  short  time,  the  dissimulation  or  irresolution  of 
Monk  kept  all  parties  in  a  state  of  painful  suspense.  A< 
length  he  broke  silence  and  declared  for  a  free  jjarliajjiejit. 

As  soon  as  his  declaration  was  known,  the  whole  nation 
was  wild  with  delight.  Wherever  he  appeared  thousands 
thronged  round  him,  shouting  and  blessing  his  name.  The 
bells  of  all  England  rang  joyously ;  the  gutters  ran  with  ale  ; 
and,  night  after  night,  the  sky  five  miles  round  London  was 
reddened  by  innumerable  bonfires.  Those  Presbyterian 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons  who  had  many  years 
before  been  expelled  by  the  army,  returned  to  their  seats,  and 
were  hailed  with  acclamations  by^great  multitudes,  which 
"filled  Westminster  Hall  and  Palape  Yard.  The  Independent 
leaders  no  longer  dared  to  show  their  faces  in  the  streets,  and 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  115 

were  scarcely  safe  within  their  own  dwellings.  Temporary 
provision  was  made  Jbr_  the  gavernment :  writs  were  issued 
for  a'^eTieraT^election j  and  then  that  memorable  parliament 
which  had,  during  twenty  eventful  years,  experienced  every 
variety  of  fortune,  which  had  triumphed  over  its  sovereign, 
which  had  been  enslaved  and  degraded  by  its  servants,  which 
had  been  twice  ejected  and  twice  restored,  solemnly  decreed 
its  own  dissolution. 

The  result  of  the  elections  was  such  as  might  have  been 
expected  from  the  temper  of  the  nation.  The  new  House  of 
Commons  consisted,  with  few  exceptions,  of  persons  friend- 
ly to  the  royal  family.  The  Presbyterians  formed  the  ma- 
jority. 

That  there  would  be  a  restoration  now  seemed  almost  cer- 
tain ;  but  whether  there  would  be  a  peaceable  restoration  was 
matter  of  painful  doubt.  The  soldiers  were  in  a  gloomy  and 
savage  mood.  They  hated  the  title  of  king.  They  hated  the 
name  of  Stuart.  They  hated  Presbyterianism  much,  and 
prelacy  more.  They  saw  with  bitter  indignation  that  the 
close  of  their  long  domination  was  approaching,  and  that  a  life 
of  inglorious  toil  and  penury  was  before  them.  They  attrib- 
uted their  ill  fortune  to  the  weakness  of  some  generals,  and 
to  the  treason  of  others.  One  hour  of  their  beloved  Oliver 
might  even  now  restore  the  glory  which  had  departed.  Be- 
trayed, disunited,  and  left  without  any  chief  in  whom  they 
could  confide,  they  were  yet  to  be  dreaded.  It  was  no  light 
thing  to  encounter  the  rage  and  despair  of  fifty  thousand  fight- 
ing men,  whose  backs  no  enemy  had  ever  seen.  Monk,  and 
those  with  whom  he  acted,  were  well  aware  that  the  crisis 
was  most  perilous.  They  employed  every  art  to  soothe  and  to 
divide  the  discontented  warriors.  At  the  same  time  vigorous 
preparation  was -made  for  a  conflict.  The  army  of  Scot- 
land, now  quartered  in  London,  was  kept  in  good  humor  by 
bribes,  praises,  and  promises.  The  wealthy  citizens  grudged 
nothing  to  a  red  coat,  and  were  indeed  so  liberal  of  their  best 
wine,  that  warlike  saints  were  sometimes  seen  in  a  condition 
not  very  honorable  either  to  their  religious  or  to  their  military 
character.  Some  refractory  reg.ments  Monk  ventured  to 
disband.  In  the  mean  time  the  greatest  exertions  were  made 
by  the  provisional  government,  with  the  strenuous  aid  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  gentry  and  magistracy,  to  organize  the  militia. 
In  every  county  the  trainbands  were  held  ready  to  march  ;  and 
this  force  cannot  be  estimated  at  less  than  a  hundred  and  twen- 


116  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ty  thousand  men.  In  Hyde  Park  twenty  thousand  citizens, 
well  armed  and  accoutred,  passed  in  review,  and  showed  a 
spirit  which  justified  the  hope  that,  in  case  of  need,  they 
would  fight  manfully  for  their  shops  and  firesides.  The  fleet 
was  heartily  with  the  nation.  It  was  a  stirring  time,  a  time 
of  anxiety,  yet  of  hope.  The  prevailing  opinion  was  that 
England  would  be  delivered,  but  not  without  a  desperate  and 
bloody  struggle,  and  that  the  class  which  had  so  long  ruled  by 
the  sword  would  perish  by  the  sword. 

Happily  the  dangers  of  a  conflict  were  averted.  There 
was  indeed  one  moment  of  extreme  peril.  Lambert  escaped 
from  his  confinement,  and  called  his  comrades  to  arms.  The 
flame  of  civil  war  was  actually  rekindled  ;  but  by  prompt  and 
vigorous  exertion  it  was  trodden  out  before  it  had  time  to 
spread.  The  luckless  imitator  of  Cromwell  was  again  a 
prisoner.  The  failure  of  his  enterprise  damped  the  spirit 
of  the  soldiers ;  and  they  sullenly  resigned  themselves  to  their 
fate. 

The  new  parliament,  which,  having  been  called  without  the 
royal  writ,  is  more  accurately  described  as  a  convention,  met  at 
Westminster.  The  lords  repaired  to  the  hall,  from  which  they 
had,  during  more  than  eleven  years,  been  excluded  by  force. 
Both  Houses  instantly  invited  the  king  to  return  to  his  country. 
He  was  proclaimed  with  pomp  never  before  known.  A  gallant 
fleet  convoyed  him  from  Holland  to  the  coast  of  Kent. 
When  he  landed,  the  cliffs  of  Dover  were  covered  by  thou- 
sands of  gazers,,  among  whom  scarcely  one  could  be  found 
who  was  not  weeping  with  delight.  The  journey  to  London 
was  a  continued  triumph.  The  whole  road  from  Rochester 
was  bordered  by  booths  and  tents,  and  looked  like  an  intermi- 
nable fair.  Every  where  flags  were  flying,  bells  and  music 
sounding,  wine  and  ale  flowing  in  rivers  to  the  health  of  him 
whose  return  was  the  return  of  peace,  of  law,  and  of  freedom. 
But  in  the  midst  of  the  general  joy,  one  spot  presented  a 
dark  and  threatening  aspect.  On  Blackheath  the  army  was 
drawn  up  to  welcome  the  sovereign.  He  smiled,  bowed,  and 
extended  his  hand  graciously  to  the  lips  of  the  colonels 
and  majors.  But  all  his  courtesy  was  vain.  The  counte- 
nances of  the  soldiers  were  sad  and  lowering  ;  and  had  they 
given  way  to  their  feelings,  the  festive  pageant  of  which  they 
reluctantly  made  a  part  would  have  had  a  mournful  and 
bloody  end.  But  there  was  no  concert  among  them.  Discord 
and  defection  had  left  them  no  confidence  in  their  chiefs  or 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  H7 

in  each  other.  The  whole  array  of  the  city  of  London  was 
under  arms.  Numerous  companies  of  militia  had  assembled 
from  various  parts  of  the  realm,  under  the  command  of  loyal 
noblemen  and  gentlemen,  to  welcome  the  king.  That  great 
day  closed  in  peace  •  and  the  restored  wanderer  reposed  safe 
in  the  palace  of  his  ancestors. 


118  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE  history  of  England,  during  the  seventeenth  century, 
is  the  history  of  the  transformation  of  a  limited  monarchy, 
constituted  after  the  fashion  of  the  middle  ages,  into  a  limited 
monarchy  suited  to  that  more  advanced  state  of  society  in 
which  the  public  charges  can  no  longer  be  borne  by  the 
estates  of  the  crown,  and  in  which  the  public  defence  can  no 
longer  be  intrusted  to  a  feudal  militia.  We  have  seen 
that  the  politicians  who  were  at  the  head  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment made,  in  1642,  a  great  effort  to  accomplish  this  change 
by  transferring,  directly  and  formally,  to  the  Estates  of  the 
realm  the  choice  of  ministers,  the  command  of  the  army,  and 
the  superintendence  of  the  whole  executive  administration. 
This  scheme  was,  perhaps,  the  best  that  could  then  be  con- 
trived ;  but  it  was  completely  disconcerted  by  the  course  which 
the  civil  war  took.  The  Houses  triumphed,  it  is  true  ;  but  not 
till  after  such  a  struggle  as  made  it  necessary  for  them  to  call 
into  existence  a  power  which  they  could  not  control,  and 
which  soon  began  to  domineer  over  all  orders  and  all  parties. 
For  a  time,  the  evils  inseparable  from  military  government 
were,  in  some  degree,  mitigated  by  the  wisdom  and  magna- 
nimity of  the  great  man  who  held  the  supreme  command. 
But,  when  the  sword  which  he  had  wielded,  with  energy 
indeed,  but  with  energy  always  guided  by  good  sense,  and 
generally  tempered  by  good  nature,  had  passed  to  captains 
who  possessed  neither  his  abilities  nor  his  virtues,  it  seemed 
too  probable  that  order  and  liberty  would  perish  in  one  igno- 
minious ruin. 

That  ruin  was  happily  averted.  It  has  been  too  much  the 
practice  of  writers  zealous  for  freedom  to  represent  the  Res- 
toration as  a  disastrous  event,  and  to  condemn  the  folly  or 
baseness  of  that  Convention  which  recalled  the  royal  family 
without  exacting  new  securities  against  maladministration. 
Those  who  hold  this  language  do  not  comprehend  the  real 
nature  of  the  crisis  which  followed  the  deposition  of  Richard 
Cromwell.  England  was  in  imminent  danger  of  sinking 
under  the  tyranny  of  a  succession  of  small  men  raised  up 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  119 

und  pulled  down  by  military  caprice.  To  deliver  the  country 
from  the  domination  of  the  soldiers  was  the  first  object  of 
every  enlightened  patriot ;  but  it  was  an  object  which,  while 
the  soldiers  were  united,  the  most  sanguine  could  scarcely 
expect  to  attain.  On  a  sudden  a  gleam  of  hope  appeared. 
General  was  opposed  to  general,  army  to  army.  On  the  use 
which  might  be  made  of  one  auspicious  moment  depended 
the  future  destiny  of  the  nation.  Our  ancestors  used  that 
moment  well.  They  forgot  old  injuries,  waved  petty  scru 
pies,  adjourned  to  a  more  convenient  season  all  dispute  about 
the  reforms  which  our  institutions  needed,  and  stood  together, 
Cavaliers  and  Roundheads,  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians, 
in  firm  union,  for  the  old  laws  of  the  land  against  military 
despotism.  The  exact  partition  of  power  among  king,  lords, 
and  commons,  might  well  be  postponed  till  it  had  been  de- 
cided whether  England  should  be  governed  by  king,  lords, 
and  commons,  or  by  cuirassiers  and  pikemen.  Had  the  states- 
men of  the  Convention  taken  a  different  course,  had  they  held 
long  debates  on  the  principles  of  government,  had  they  drawn 
up  a  new  constitution  and  sent  it  to  Charles,  had  conferences 
been  opened,  had  couriers  been  passing  and  repassing  during 
some  weeks  between  Westminster  and  the  Netherlands,  with 
projects  and  counterprojects,  replies  by  Hyde  and  rejoinders 
by  Prynne,  the  coalition  on  which  the  public  safety  depended 
would  have  been  dissolved  ;  the  Presbyterians  and  Royalists 
would  certainly  have  quarrelled ;  the  military  factions  might 
possibly  have  been  reconciled  ;  and  the  misjudging  friends  of 
liberty  might  long  have  regretted,  under  a  rule  worse  than 
that  of  the  worst  Stuart,  the  golden  opportunity  which  had 
been  suffered  to  escape. 

The  old  civil  polity  was,  therefore,  by  the  general  consent 
of  both  the  great  parties,  reestablished.  It  was  again  exactly 
what  it  had  been  when  Charles  the  First,  eighteen  years  be- 
fore, withdrew  from  his  capital.  All  those  acts  of  the  Long 
Parliament  which  had  received  the  royal  assent  were  admitted 
to  be  still  in  full  force.  One  fresh  concession,  a  concession  in 
which  the  Cavaliers  were  even  more  deeply  interested  than 
the  Roundheads,  was  easily  obtained  from  the  restored  king. 
The  military  tenure  of  land  had  been  originally  created  as  a 
means  of  national  defence.  But  in  the  course  of  ages  what- 
ever was  useful  in  the  institution  had  disappeared  ;  and  noth- 
'ng  was  left  but  ceremonies  and  grievances.  A  landed  pro- 
prietor who  held  an  estate  under  the  crown  by  knight  service,  — 


120  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  it  was  thus  that  most  of  the  soil  of  England  was  held,  — 
had  to  pay  a  large  fine  on  coming  to  his  property.  He  could 
not  alienate  one  acre  without  purchasing  a  license.  When  he 
died,  if  his  domains  descended  to  an  infant,  the  sovereign 
was  guardian,  and  was  not  only  entitled  to  great  part  of  the 
rents  during  the  minority,  but  could  require  the  ward,  under 
heavy  penalties,  to  marry  any  person  of  suitable  rank.  The 
chief  bait  which  attracted  a  needy  sycophant  to  the  court  was 
the  hope  of  obtaining,  as  the  reward  of  servility  and  flattery, 
a  royal  letter  to  an  heiress.  These  abuses  had  perished  with 
the  monarchy.  That  they  should  not  revive  with  it  was  the 
wish  of  every  landed  gentleman  in  the  kingdom.  They 
were,  therefore,  solemnly  abolished  by  statute  ;  and  no  relic 
of  the  ancient  tenures  in  chivalry  was  suffered  to  remain, 
except  those  honorary  services  which  are  still,  at  a  corona- 
tion, rendeied  to  the  person  of  the  sovereign  by  some  lords 
of  manors. 

The  troops  were  now  to  be  disbanded.  Fifty  thousand 
men,  accustomed  to  the  profession  of  arms,  were  at  once 
thrown  on  the  world  ;  and  experience  seemed  to  warrant  the 
belief  that  this  change  would  produce  much  misery  and  crime, 
.hat  the  discharged  veterans  would  be  seen  begging  in  every 
street,  or  would  be  driven  by  hunger  to  pillage.  But  no  such 
result  followed.  In  a  few  months  there  remained  not  a  trace 
indicating  that  the  most  formidable  army  in  the  world  had  just 
been  absorbed  into  the  mass  of  the  community.  The  royalists 
themselves  confessed  that,  in  every  department  of  honest  in- 
dustry, the  discarded  warriors  prospered  beyond  other  men, 
that  none  was  charged  with  any  theft  or  robbery,  that  none 
was  heard  to  ask  an  alms,  and  that,  if  a  baker,  a  mason,  or 
a  wagoner,  attracted  notice  by  his  diligence  and  sobriety,  he 
was  in  all  probability  one  of  Oliver's  old  soldiers. 

The  military  tyranny  had  passed  away  ;  but  it  had  left  deep 
and  enduring  traces  in  the  public  mind.  The  name  of  a 
standing  army  was  long  held  in  abhorrence  ;  and  it  is  remark- 
able that  this  feeling  was  even  stronger  among  the  Cavaliers 
than  among  the  Roundheads.  It  ought  to  be  considered  as  a 
most  fortunate  circumstance  that,  when  our  country  was,  for 
the  first  and  last  time,  ruled  by  the  sword,  the  sword  was  in 
the  hands,  not  of  her  legitimate  princes,  but  of  those  rebels 
who  slew  the  king  and  demolished  the  Church.  Had  a  prince, 
with  a  title  as  good  as  that  of  Charles,  commanded  an  army 
as  good  as  that  of  Cromwell,  there  would  have  been  little  hopa 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  121 

indeed  for  the  liberties  of  England.  Happily  that  instrument 
by  which  alone  the  monarchy  could  be  made  absolute  became 
an  object  of  peculiar  horror  and  disgust  to  the  monarchical 
party,  and  long  continued  to  be  inseparably  associated  in  the 
imagination  of  royalists  and  prelatists  with  regicide  and  field 
preaching.  A  century  after  the  death  of  Cromwell,  the 
Tories  still  continued  to  clamor  against  every  augmentation 
of  the  regular  soldiery,  and  to  sound  the  praise  of  a  national 
militia.  So  late  as  the  year  1786,  a  minister  who  enjoyed  no 
common  measure  of  their  confidence  found  it  impossible  to 
overcome  their  aversion  to  his  scheme  of  fortifying  the  coast ; 
nor  did  they  ever  look  with  entire  complacency  on  the  stand- 
ing army,  till  the  French  Revolution  gave  a  new  direction  to 
their  apprehensions. 

The  coalition  which  had  restored  the  king  terminated  with 
the  danger  from  which  it  had  sprung  ;  and  two  hostile  parties 
again  appeared  ready  for  conflict.  Both  indeed  were  agreed 
as  to  the  propriety  of  inflicting  punishment  on  some  unhappy 
men  who  were,  at  that  moment,  objects  of  almost  universal 
hatred.  Cromwell  was  no  more  ;  and  those  who  had  fled 
before  him  were  forced  to  content  themselves  with  the 
miserable  satisfaction  of  digging  up,  hanging,  quartering, 
and  burning  the  remains  of  the  greatest  prince  that  has 
ever  ruled  England.  Other  objects  of  vengeance,  few 
indeed,  yet  too  many,  were  found  among  the  republican 
chiefs.  Soon,  however,  the  conquerors,  glutted  with  the 
blood  of  the  regicides,  turned  against  each  other.  The 
Roundheads,  while  admitting  the  virtues  of  the  late  king, 
and  while  condemning  the  sentence  passed  upon  him  by  an 
illegal  tribunal,  yet  maintained  that  his  administration  had 
been,  in  many  things,  unconstitutional,  and  that  the  Houses 
had  taken  arms  against  him  from  good  motives  and  on  strong 
grounds.  The  monarchy,  these  politicians  conceived,  had  no 
worse  enemy  than  the  flatterer  who  exalted  the  prerogative 
above  the  law,  who  condemned  all  opposition  to  regal  en- 
croachments, and  who  reviled,  not  only  Cromwell  and  Har- 
rison, but  Pym  and  Hampden,  as  traitors.  If  the  king  wished 
for  a  quiet  and  prosperous  reign,  he  must  confide  in  those 
who,  though  they  had  drawn  the  sword  in  defence  of  the 
invaded  privileges  of  parliament,  had  yet  exposed  then''  • 
selves  to  the  rage  of  the  soldiers  in  order  to  save  his  father, 
and  had  taken  the  chief  part  in  bringing  back  the  roval 
famjly_-. 

VOL.  i.  11 


122  HISTORY    3P    ENGLAND 

The  fueling  of  the  Cavaliers  was  widely  different. 
eighteen  years  they  had,  through  all  vicissitudes,  been  faith- 
ful to  the  crown.  Having  shared  the  distress  of  their  prince 
were  they  not  to  share  his  triumph  ?  Was  no  distinction  to  be 
made  between  them  and  the  disloyal  subject  who  had  fought 
against  his  rightful  sovereign,  who  had  adhered  to  Richard 
Cromwell,  and  who  had  never  concurred  in  the  restoration 
of  the  Stuarts,  till  it  appeared  that  nothing  else  could  save 
the  nation  from  the  tyranny  of  the  army  ?  Grant  that  such 
a  man  had,  by  his  recent  services,  fairly  earned  his  pardon. 
Yet  were  his  services,  rendered  at  the  eleventh  hour,  to  be  put 
in  comparison  with  the  toils  and  sufferings  of  those  who.  had 
borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day  ?  Was  he  to  be  ranked 
with  men  who  had  no  need  of  the  royal  clemency,  with  men 
who  had,  in  every  part  of  their  lives,  merited  the  royal  grati- 
tude ?  Above  all,  was  he  to  be  suffered  to  retain  a  fortune 
raised  out  of  the  substance  of  the  ruined  defenders  of  the 
throne  ?  Was  it  not  enough  that  his  head  and  his  patrimonial 
estate,  a  hundred  times  forfeited  to  justice,  were  secure,  and 
that  he  shared,  with  the  rest  of  the  nation,  in  the  blessings 
of  that  mild  government  of  which  he  had  long  been  the  foe  ? 
Was  it  necessary  that  he  should  be  rewarded  for  his  treason 
at  the  expense  of  men  whose  only  crime  was  the  fidelity  with 
which  they  had  observed  their  oath  of  allegiance  ?  And 
what  interest  had  the  king  in  gorging  his  old  enemies  with 
prey  torn  from  his  old  friends  ?  What  confidence  could  be 
placed  in  men  who  had  opposed  their  sovereign,  made  war  on 
him,  imprisoned  him,  and  who,  even  now,  instead  of  hanging 
down  their  heads  in  shame  and  contrition,  vindicated  all  that 
they  had  done,  and  seemed  to  think  that  they  had  given  an 
illustrious  proof  of  loyalty  by  just  stopping  short  of  regicide  ? 
It  was  true  that  they  had  lately  assisted  to  set  up  the  throne  ; 
but  it  was  not  less  true  that  they  had  previously  pulled  it 
down,  and  that  they  still  avowed  principles  which  might 
impel  them  to  pull  it  down  again.  Undoubtedly  it  might  be 
fit  that  marks  of  royal  approbation  should  be  bestowed  on 
some  converts  who  had  been  eminently  useful ;  but  policy,  as 
well  as  justice  and  gratitude,  enjoined  the  king  to  give  the 
highest  place  in  his  regard  to  those  who,  from  first  to  last, 
through  good  and  evil,  had  stood  by  his  house.  On  these 
grounds  the  Cavaliers  very  naturally  demanded  indemnity  for 
all  that  they  had  suffered,  and  preference  in  the  distribution 
of  the  favors  of  the  crown  Some  violent  members  of  the 


HISTCRY    OP    ENGLAND.  123 

party  went  further,  and  clamored  for  large  categories  of  pro- 
scription. 

The  political  feud  was,  as  usual,  exasperated  by  a  religious 
feud.  The  king  found  the  church  in  a  singular  state.  A 
short  time  before  the  commencement  of  the  civil  war,  his 
father  had  given  a  reluctant  assent  to  a  bill,  strongly  supported 
by  Falkland,  which  deprived  the  bishops  of  their  seats  in  the 
House  of  Lords  ;  but  episcopacy  and  the  liturgy  had  never 
been  abolished  by  law.  The  Long  Parliament,  however,  had 
passed  ordinances  which  had  made  a  complete  revolution  in 
church  government  and  in  public  worship.  The  new  system 
was,  in  principle,  scarcely  less  Erastian  than  that  which  it 
displaced.  The  houses,  guided  chiefly  by  the  counsels  of  the 
accomplished  Selden,  had  determined  to  keep  the  spiritual 
power  strictly  subordinate  to  the  temporal  power.  They  had 
refused  to  declare  that  any  form  of  ecclesiastical  polity  was 
of  divine  origin  ;  and  they  had  provided  that,  from  all  the 
church  courts,  an  appeal  should  lie  in  the  last  resort  to  par- 
liament. With  this  highly  important  reservation  it  had"  been 
resolved  to  set  up  in  England  a  hierarchy  closely  resembling 
that  which  now  exists  in  Scotland.  The  authority  of  councils, 
rising  one  above  another,  in  regular  gradation,  was  substituted 
for  the  authority  of  bishops  and  archbishops.  The  liturgy 
gave  place  to  the  Presbyterian  directory,  but  scarcely  had 
the  new  regulations  been  framed,  when  the  Independents  rose 
to  supreme  influence  in  the  state.  The  Independents  had  no 
disposition  to  enforce  the  ordinances  touching  classical,  pro- 
vincial, and  national  synods.  Those  ordinances,  therefore, 
were  never  carried  into  full  execution.  The  Presbyterian 
system  was  fully  established  nowhere  but  in  Middlesex  and 
Lancashire.  In  the  other  fifty  counties,  almost  every  parish 
seems  to  have  been  unconnected  with  the  neighboring  parishes. 
In  some  districts,  indeed,  the  ministers  formed  themselves 
into  voluntary  associations,  for  the  purpose  of  mutual  help 
and  counsel ;  but  these  associations  had  no  coercive  power. 
The  patrons  of  livings,  being  now  checked  by  neither  bishop 
nor  presbytery,  would  have  been  at  liberty  to  confide  the 
cure  of  souls  to  the  most  scandalous  of  mankind,  but  for  the 
arbitrary  intervention  of  O'iver.  He  established,  by  his  own 
authority,  a  board  of  comrrassioners  called  triers.  Most  of 
these  persons  were  Independent  divines ;  but  a  few  Pres- 
byterian ministers  and  a  few  laymen  had  seats.  The  cer- 
tificate of  the  triers  stood  in  the  place  both  of  institution  and 


124  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  induct/on ;  and  without  such  a  certificate  no  person  could 
hold  a  benefice.  This  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most 
despotic  acts  ever  done  by  an  English  ruler.  Yet,  as  it  was 
generally  felt  that,  without  some  such  precaution,  the  country 
would  be  overrun  by  ignorant  and  drunken  reprobates,  bear- 
ing the  name  and  receiving  the  pay  of  ministers,  some  highly 
respectable  persons,  who  were  not  in  general  friendly  to 
Cromwell,  allowed  that,  on  this  occasion,  he  had  been  a  public 
benefactor.  The  presentees  whom  the  triers  had  approved 
took  possession  of  the  rectories,  cultivated  the  glebe  lands, 
collected  the  tithes,  prayed  without  book  or  surplice,  and 
administered  the  Eucharist  to  communicants  seated  at  long 
tables. 

Thus  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  realm  was  in  inextrica- 
ble confusion.  Episcopacy  was  the  form  of  government  pre- 
scribed by  the  old  law  of  the  land,  which  was  still  uaregealed. 
The  form  of  government~prescribed  by  parliamentary  ordi- 
nance was  presbyterian.  But  neither  the  old  law  nor  the  par- 
liamentary ordinance  was  practically  in  force.  The  church 
actually  established  may  be  described  as  an  irregular  body, 
made  up  of  a  few  presbyteries,  and  of  many  independent 
congregations,  which  were  all  held  down  and  held  together  by 
the  authority  of  the  government. 

Of  those  who  had  been  active  in  bringing  back  the  king, 
many  were  zealous  for  synods  and  for  the  directory,  and 
many  were  desirous  to  terminate  by  a  compromise  the  reli- 
gious dissensions  which  had  long  agitated  England.  Between 
the  bigoted  followers  of  Laud  and  the  bigoted  followers  of 
Calvin,  there  could  be  neither  peace  nor  truce ;  but  it  did  not 
seem  impossible  to  effect  an  accommodation  between  the 
moderate  Episcopalians  of  the  school  of  Usher  and  the  mod- 
erate Presbyterians  of  the  school  of  Baxter.  The  moderate 
Episcopalians  would  admit  that  a  bishop  might  lawfully  be 
assisted  by  a  council.  The  moderate  Presbyterians  would  not 
deny  that  each  provincial  assembly  might  lawfully  have  a  per- 
manent president,  and  that  this  president  might  lawfully  be 
called  a  bishop.  There  might  be  a  revised  liturgy  which 
should  not  exclude  extemporaneous  prayer,  a  baptismal  service- 
in  which  the  sign  of  the  cross  might  be  used  or  omitted  at 
discretion,  a  communion  service  at  which  the  faithful  might 
sit  if  their  consciences  forbade  them  to  kneel.  But  to  no  such 
plan  could  the  great  body  of  Cavaliers  listen  with  patience, 
The  religious  members  of  that  party  were  conscientiously 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  125 

attached  to  the  whole  system  of  their  Church.  She  had  been 
dear  to  their  murdered  king.  She  had  consoled  them  in  defeat 
and  penury.  Her  service,  so  often  whispered  in  an  inner 
chamber  during  the  season  of  trial,  had  such  a  charm  for  them, 
that  they  were  unwilling  to  part  with  a  single  response.  Other 
royalists,  who  made  little  pretence  to  piety,  yet  loved  the  epis- 
copal Church  because  she  was  the  foe  of  thedr  foes.  They 
valued  a  prayer  or  a  ceremony,  not  on  account  of  the  comfort 
which  it  conveyed  to  themselves,  but  on  account  of  the  vexa- 
tion which  it  gave  to  the  Roundheads,  and  were  so  far  from 
being  disposed  to  purchase  union  by  concession,  that  they 
objected  to  concession  chiefly  because  it  tended  to  produce 
union. 

Such  feelings,  though  blamable,  were  natural  and  not  wholly 
inexcusable.  The  Puritans,,  in  the  day  of  their  power,  had 
undoubtedly  given  cruel  provocation.  They  ought  to  have 
learned,  if  from  nothing  else,  yet  from  their  own  discontents, 
from  their  own  struggles,  from  their  own  victory,  from  the  fall 
of  that  proud  hierarchy  by  which  they  had  been  so  heavily 
oppressed,  that,  in  England,  and  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
it  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  civil  magistrate  to  drill  the 
minds  of  men  into  conformity  with  his  own  system  of  theology. 
They  proved,  however,  as  intolerant  and  as  meddling  as  ever 
Laud  had  been.  They  interdicted,  under  heavy  penalties,  the 
use  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  not  only  in  churches, 
but  even  in  private  houses.  It  was  a  crime  in  a  child  to  read, 
by  the  bedside  of  a  sick  parent,  one  of  those  beautiful  collects 
which  had  soothed  the  griefs  of  forty  generations  of  Christians. 
Severe  punishments  were  denounced  against  such  as  should 
presume  to  blame  the  Calvinistic  mode  of  worship.  Clergy- 
men of  respectable  character  were  not  only  ejected  from  their 
benefices  by  thousands,  but  were  frequently  exposed  to  the 
outrages  of  a  fanatical  rabble.  Churches  and  sepulchres,  fine 
works  of  art  and  curious  remains  of  antiquity,  were  brutally 
defaced.  The  parliament  resolved  that  all  pictures  in  the 
royal  collection  which  contained  representations  of  Jesus  or 
of  the  Virgin  Mother  should  be  burned.  Sculpture  fared  as 
ill  as  painting.  Nymphs  and  Graces,  the  work  of  Ionian 
chisels,  were  delivered  over  to  Puritan  stone-masons  to  be 
made  decent.  Against  the  lighte.1  vices,  the  ruling  faction 
waged  war  with  a  zeal  little  tempered  by  humanity  or  by  com- 
mon sense.  Sharp  laws  were  passed  against  betting.  It  was 
enacted  that  adultery  should  be  punished  with  death.  The 
11* 


HISTORY    OF    ENOLAITD. 

illicit  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  even  where  neither  violence  noi 
seduction  was  imputed,  where  no  public  scandal  was  given, 
where  no  conjugal  right  was  violated,  was  made  a  misde- 
meanor. Public  amusements,  from  the  masks  which  were 
exhibited  at  the  mansions  of  the  great  down  to  the  wrestling 
matches  and  grinning  matches  on  village  greens,  were  vigor- 
ously attacked.  One  ordinance  directed  that  all  the  Maypoles 
in  England  should  forthwith  be  hewn  down.  Another  pro- 
scribed all  theatrical  diversions.  The  playhouses  were  to  be 
dismantled,  the  spectators  fined,  the  actors  whipped  at  the 
cart's  tail.  Rope-dancing,  puppet-shows,  bowls,  horse-racing, 
were  regarded  with  no  friendly  eye.  But  bear-baiting,  then  a 
favorite  diversion  of  high  and  low,  was  the  abomination  which 
most  strongly  stirred  the  wrath  of  the  austere  sectaries.  It  is 
to  be  remarked  that  their  antipathy  to  this  sport  had  nothing  in 
common  with  the  feeling  which  has,  in  our  own  time,  induced 
the  legislature  to  interfere  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  beasts 
against  the  wanton  cruelty  of  men.  The  Puritan  hated  bear- 
baiting,  not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but  because  it 
gave  pleasure  to  the  spectators.  Indeed,  he  generally  con- 
trived to  enjoy  the  double  pleasure  of  tormenting  both  specta- 
tors and  bear.* 

*  How  little  compassion  for  the  bear  had  to  do  with  the  matter  is 
sufficiently  proved  by  the  following  extract  from  a  paper  entitled  "  A 
perfect  Diurnal  of  some  Passages  of  Parliament,  and  from  other  Parts 
of  the  Kingdom,  from  Monday  July  24th,  to  Monday  July  31st, 
1643."  "  Upon  the  queen's  coming  from  Holland,  she  brought  with 
her,  besides  a  company  of  savage-like  ruffians,  a  company  of  savage 
bear?,  to  what  purpose  you  may  judge  by  the  sequel.  Those  bears 
were  left  about  Newark,  and  were  brought  into  country  towns  con- 
stantly on  the  Lord's  day  to  be  baited,  such  is  the  religion  those  here 
related  would  settle  amongst  us ;  and,  if  any  went  about  to  hinder 
or  but  speak  against  their  damnable  profanations,  they  were  pres- 
ently noted  as  Roundheads  and  Puritans,  and  sure  to  be  plundered 
for  it.  But  some  of  Colonel  Cromwell's  forces,  coming  by  accident 
into  Uppingham  town,  in  Rutland,  on  the  Lord's  day,  found  these 
bears  playing  there  in  the  usual  manner,  and,  in  the  height  of  their 
sport,  caused  them  to  be  seized  upon,  tied  to  a  tree,  and  shot."  This 
was  by  no  means  a  solitary  instance.  Colonel  Pride,  when  sheriff  of 
Surrey,  ordered  the  beasts  in  the  bear  garden  of  Southwark  to  be 
killed.  He  is  represented  by  a  loyal  satirist  as  defending  the  act 
thus :  "  The  first  thing  that  is  upon  my  spirits  is  the  killing  ?f  the 
bears,  for  which  the  people  hate  me,  and  call  me  all  the  name*  ;n  the 
rainbow.  But  did  not  David  kill  a  bear  ?  Did  not  the  Lord  Pqputy 
Ireton  kill  a  bear  ?  Did  not  another  lord  of  ours  kill  five  bean  *'  — 
Last  Speech  and  dying  Words  of  Thomas  Pride. 


HI3TORY    OF    ENGLAND.  127 

Perhaps  no  single  circumstance  more  strongly  illustrates 
the  temper  of  the  precisians  than  their  conduct  respecting 
Christmas  day.  Christmas  had  been,  from  time  immemorial, 
the  season  of  joy  and  domestic  affection,  the  season  when 
families  assembled,  when  children  came  home  from  school 
when  quarrels  were  made  up,  when  carols  were  heard  in 
9very  street,  when  every  house  was  decorated  with  evergreens, 
ind  every  table  was  loaded  with  good  cheer.  At  that  season 
ill  hearts  not  utterly  destitute  of  kindness  were  enlarged  and 
softened.  At  that  season  the  poor  were  admitted  to  partake 
largely  of  the  overflowings  of  the  wealth  of  the  rich,  whose 
bounty  was  peculiarly  acceptable  on  account  of  the  shortness 
of  the  days  and  of  the  severity  of  the  weather.  At  that  sea- 
son the  interval  between  landlord  and  tenant,  master  and 
servant,  was  less  marked  than  through  the  rest  of  the  year. 
Where  there  is  much  enjoyment  there  will  be  some  excess : 
yet,  on  the  whole,  the  spirit  in  which  the  holiday  was  kept  was 
not  unworthy  of  a  Christian  festival.  The  Long  Parliament 
gave  orders,  in  1644,  that  the  twenty-fifth  of  December  should 
be  strictly  observed  as  a  fast,  and  that  all  men  should  pass  it 
in  humbly  bemoaning  the  great  national  sin  which  they  and 
their  fathers  had  so  often  committed  on  that  day  by  romping 
under  the  mistletoe,  eating  boar's  head,  and  drinking  ale  fla- 
vored with  roasted  apples.  No  public  act  of  that  time  seems 
to  have  irritated  the  common  people  more.  On  the  next  an- 
niversary of  the  festival  formidable  riots  broke  out  in  many 
places.  The  constables  were  resisted,  the  magistrates  insult- 
ed, the  houses  of  rioted  zealots  attacked,  and  the  proscribed 
service  of  the  day  openly  read  in  the  churches. 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  extreme  Puritans,  both  Presbyte- 
rian and  Independent.  Oliver,  indeed,  was  little  disposed  to 
be  either  a  persecutor  or  a  meddler.  But  Oliver,  the  head  of 
a  party,  and  consequently,  to  a  great  extent,  the  slave  of  a 
party,  could  not  govern  altogether  according  to  his  own  incli- 
nations. Even  under  his  administration  many  magistrates, 
within  their  own  jurisdiction,  made  themselves  as  odious  as  Sir 
Hudibras,  interfered  with  all  the  pleasures  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, dispersed  festive  meetings,  and  put  fiddlers  in  the  stocks. 
Still  more  formidable  was  t  te  zeal  of  the  soldiers.  In  every 
village  where  they  appeared  there  was  an  end  of  dancing,  bell- 
ringing,  and  hockey.  In  London  they  several  times  interrupt- 
ed theatrical  performances,  at  which  the  Protector  had  the 
judgment  and  good  nature  to  connive. 


128  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

With  the  fear  and  hatred  inspired  by  such  a  tyranny  con 
tempt  was  largely  mingled.  The  peculiarities  of  the  Puiitan, 
his  look,  his  dress,  his  dialect,  his  strange  scruples,  had  been, 
ever  since  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  favorite  subjects  with  mock- 
ers. But  these  peculiarities  appeared  far,more  grotesque  in  a 
faction  which  ruled  a  great  empire  than  in  obscure  and  perse- 
cuted congregations.  The  cant  which  had  moved  laughter 
when  it  was  heard  on  the  stage  from  Tribulation  Wholesome, 
and  Zeal-of-the-Land  Busy,  was  still  more  laughable  when  it 
proceeded  from  the  lips  of  generals  and  councillors  of  state. 
It  is  also  to  be  noted,  that  during  the  civil  troubles  several 
sects  had  sprung  into  existence,  whose  eccentricities  surpassed 
any  thing  that  had  before  been  seen  in  England.  A  mad  tai- 
lor, named  Ludowick  Muggleton,  wandered  from  pothouse  to 
pothouse,  tippling  ale,  and  denouncing  eternal  torments  against 
those  who  refused  to  believe,  on  his  testimony,  that  the  Su- 
preme Being  was  only  six  feet  high,  and  that  the  sun  was  just 
four  miles  from  the  earth.*  George  Fox  had  raised  a  tem- 
pest of  derision  by  proclaiming  that  it  was  a  violation  of  Chris- 
tian sincerity  to  designate  a  single  person  by  a  plural  pronoun, 
and  that  it  was  an  idolatrous  homage  to  Janus  and  Woden  to 
talk  about  January  and  Wednesday.  His  doctrine,  a  few  years 
later,  was  embraced  by  some  eminent  men,  and  rose  greatly 
in  the  public  estimation.  But  at  the  time  .of  the  Restoration 
the  Quakers  were  popularly  regarded  as  the  most  despica'ble 
of  fanatics.  By  the  Puritans  they  were  treated  with  severity 
here,  and  were  persecuted  to  the  death  in  New  England. 
Nevertheless  the  public,  which  seldom  makes  nice  distinctions, 
often  confounded  the  Puritan  with  the  Quaker.  Both  were 
schismatics.  Both  hated  episcopacy  and  the  liturgy.  Both 
had  what  seemed  extravagant  whimseys  about  dress,  diver- 
sions, and  postures.  Widely  as  the  two  differed  in  opinion, 
they  were  popularly  classed  together  as  canting  schismatics  ; 
and  whatever  was  ridiculous  or  odious  in  either  increased  the 
scorn  and  aversion  which  the  multitude  felt  for  both. 

Before  the  civil  wars,  even  those  who  most  disliked  the 
opinions  and  manners  of  the  Puritan  were  forced  to  admit  that 
his  moral  conduct  was  generally,  in  essentials,  blameless  ;  but 
this  praise  was  now  no  longer  bestc  wed,  and,  unfortunately, 
was  no  longer  deserved.  The  general  fate  of  sects  is  to 

*  See  Perm's  New  Witnesses  proved  Old  Heretics,  and  Muggleton's 
works,  passim. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  129 

obtain  a  high  reputation  for  sanctity  while  they  are  oppressed, 
and  to  lose  it  as  soon  as  they  become  powerful :  and  the  rea- 
son is  obvious.  It  is  seldom  that  a  man  enrolls  himself  in  a 
proscribed  body  from  any  but  conscientious  motives.  Such  a 
body,  therefore,  is  composed,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  of 
sincere  persons.  The  most  rigid  discipline  that  can  be  en- 
forced within  a  religious  society  is  a  very  feeble  instrument 
of  purification,  when  compared  with  a  little  sharp  persecution 
from  without.  We  may  be  certain  that  very  few  persons,  not 
seriously  impressed  by  religious  convictions,  applied  for  bap- 
tism while  Diocletian  was  vexing  the  church,  or  joined  them- 
selves to  Protestant  congregations  at  the  risk  of  being  burned 
by  Bonner.  But,  when  a  sect  becomes  powerful,  when  its  fa- 
vor is  the  road  to  riches  and  dignities,  worldly  and  ambitious 
men  crowd  into  it,  talk  its  language,  conform  strictly  to  its 
ritual,  mimic  its  peculiarities,  and  frequently  go  beyond  its 
honest  members  in  all  the  outward  indications  of  zeal.  No 
discernment,  no  watchfulness,  on  the  part  of  ecclesiastical 
rulers,  can  prevent  the  intrusion  of  such  false  brethren.  The 
tares  and  the  wheat  must  grow  together.  Soon  the  world  be- 
gins to  find  out  that  the  godly  are  not  better  than  other  men, 
and  argues,  with  some  justice,  that,  if  not  better,  they  must  be 
much  worse.  In  no  long  time  all  those  signs  which  were 
formerly  regarded  as  characteristic  of  a  saint  are  regarded  as 
characteristic  of  a  knave. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  English  Nonconformists.  They  had 
been  oppressed,  and  oppression  had  kept  them  a  pure  body. 
They  became  supreme  in  the  state.  No  man  could  hope  to 
rise  to  eminence  and  command  but  by  their  favor.  Their  fa- 
vor was  to  be  gained  only  by  exchanging  with  them  the  signs 
and  passwords  of  spiritual  fraternity.  One  of  the  first  resolu- 
tions adopted  by  Barebone's  parliament,  the  most  intensely 
Puritanical  of  all  our  political  assemblies,  was  that  no  person 
should  be  admitted  into  the  public  service  till  the  House  should 
be  satisfied  of  his  real  godliness.  What  were  then  considered 
as  the  signs  of  real  godliness,  the  sad-colored  dress,  the  sour 
look,  the  straight  hair,  the  nasal  whine,  the  speech  interspersed 
with  quaint  texts,  the  abhorrence  of  comedies,  cards,  and 
hawking,  were  easily  counterfeited  by  men  to  whom  all  reli- 
gions were  the  same.  The  sincere  Puritans  soon  found  them- 
selves lost  in  a  multitude,  not  merely  of  men  of  the  world,  but 
of  the  very  worst  sort  of  men  of  the  world.  For  the  most  no  • 
orious  libertine  who  had  fought  under  the  royal  standard  might 


130  HISTORY    OF    F.NGLAND. 

justly  be  thought  virtuous  when  compared  with  some  of  those 
who,  while  they  talked  about  sweet  experiences  and  comforta- 
ble Scriptures,  lived  in  the  constant  practice  of  fraud,  rapacity, 
and  secret  debauchery.  The  nation,  with  a  rashness  which 
we  may  justly  regret,  but  at  which  we  cannot  wonder,  formed 
its  estimate  of  the  whole  party  from  these  hypocrites.  The 
theology,  the  manners,  the  dialect  of  the  Puritan  were  thus 
associated  in  the  public  mind  with  the  darkest  and  meanest 
vices.  As  soon  as  the  Restoration  had  made  it  safe  to  avow 
enmity  to  the  party  which  had  so  long  been  predominant  in 
the  state,  a  general  outcry  against  Puritanism  rose  from  every 
corner  oi  the  kingdom,  and  was  often  swollen  by  the  voices 
of  those  very  dissemblers  whose  villany  had  brought  disgrace 
on  the  Puritan  name. 

Thus  the  two  great  parties  which,  after  a  long  contest,  had 
for  a  moment  concurred  in  restoring  the  royal  house,  were, 
both  in  politics  and  in  religion,  again  opposed  to  each  other. 
The  great  body  of  the  nation  leaned  to  the  royalists.  The 
crimes  of  Strafford  and  Laud,  the  excesses  of  the  Star  Cham- 
ber and  of  the  High  Commission,  the  great  services  which  the 
Long  Parliament  had,  during  the  first  year  of  its  existence, 
rendered  to  the  state,  had  faded  from  the  minds  of  men.  The 
execution  of  Charles  the  First,  the  sullen  tyranny  of  the  Rump, 
the  violence  of  the  army,  were  remembered  with  loathing : 
and  the  multitude  was  inclined  to  hold  all  who  had  withstood 
the  late  king  responsible  for  his  death  and  for  the  subsequent 
disasters. 

The  House  of  Commons,  having  been  elected  while  the 
Presbyterians  were  dominant,  by  no  means  represented  the 
general  sense  of  the  people,  and  shnweH  a _g^g"g  disposition 
to  check  the  intolerant  loyalty  of  the  Cavaliers.  One  member, 
who  ventured  to  declare  that  all  who  had  drawn  the  sword 
against  Charles  the  First  were  as  much  traitors  as  those  who 
cut  off  his  head,  was  called  to  order,  placed  at  the  bar, 
and  reprimanded  by  the  speaker.  The  general  wish  of  the 
House  undoubtedly  was  tn  sejfllgjjie  ecclesiastical  disputes^Hl 
a  manner  satisfactory  to  the  moderate  Puritans.  But  to  such 
a  settlement  both  the  court  and  the  nation  were  averse. 

The  restored  king  was  at  this  time  more  loved  by  the  peo- 
ple than  any  of  his  predecessors  had  ever  been.  The  calam- 
ities of  his  house,  the  heroic  death  of  his  father,  his  own  long 
sufferings  and  romantic  adventures,  made  him  an  object  ot' 
•finder  interest.  His  return  had  delivered  the  country  from 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  131 

an  Intolerable  bondage.  Recalled  by  the  voice  of  both  the 
contending  factions,  he  was  the  very  man  to  arbitrate  between 
them ;  and  in  some  respects  he  was  well  qualified  for  the 
task.  He  had  received  from  nature  excellent  parts  and  a 
nappy  temper.  His  education  had  been  such  as  might  have 
oeen  expected  to  develop  his  understanding,  and  to  form 
him  to  the  practice  of  every  public  and  private  virtue.  He 
had  passed  through  all  varieties  of  fortune,  and  had  seen 
both  sides  of  human  nature.  He  had,  while  very  young, 
been  driven  forth  from  a  palace  to  a  life  of  exile,  penury,  and 
danger.  He  had,  at  the  age  when  the  mind  and  body  are  in 
their  highest  perfection,  and  when  the  first  effervescence  of 
boyish  passions  should  have  subsided,  been  recalled  from  his 
wanderings  to  wear  a  crown.  He  had  been  taught  by  bitter 
experience  how  much  baseness,  perfidy,  and  ingratitude  may 
He  hid  under  the  obsequious  demeanor  of  courtiers.  He  had 
found,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  huts  of  the  poorest,  true 
nobility  of  soul.  When  wealth  was  offered  to  any  who  would 
betray  him,  when  death  was  denounced  against  all  who  should 
shelter  him,  cottagers  and  serving  men  had  kept  his  secret 
truly,  and  had  kissed  his  hand  under  his  mean  disguises  with 
as  much  reverence  as  if  he  had  been  seated  on  his  ancestral 
throne.  From  such  a  school  it  might  have  been  expected 
that  a  young  man  who  wanted  neither  abilities  nor  amiable 
qualities  would  have  come  forth  a  great  and  good  king. 
Charles  came  forth  from  that  school  with  social  habits,  with 
polite  and  engaging  manners,  and  with  some  talent  for  lively 
conversation,  addicted  beyond  measure  to  sensual  indulgence, 
fond  of  sauntering  and  of  frivolous  amusements,  incapable 
of  self-denial  and  of  exertion,  without  faith  in  human  virtue 
or  in  human  attachment,  without  desire  of  renown,  and  with- 
out sensibility  to  reproach.  According  to  him,  every  person 
was  to  be  bought.  But  some  people  haggled  more  about 
their  price  ^han  others  ;  and  when  this  haggling  was  very 
obstinate  and  very  skilful,  it  was  called  by  some  fine  name. 
The  chief  trick  by  which  clever  men  kept  up  the  price  of 
their  abilities  was  called  integrity.  The  chief  trick  by  which 
handsome  women  kept  up  the  price  of  their  beauty  was  called 
modesty.  The  love  of  God,  the  love  of  country,  the  love 
of  family,  the  love  of  friends,  were  phrases  of  the  same 
sort,  delicate  and  convenient  synonymes  for  the  love  of  self. 
Thinking  thus  of  mankind,  Charles  naturally  cared  very  little 
what  they  thought  of  him.  Honor  and  shame  were  scarcely 


132  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

more  to  him  than  light  and  darkness  to  the  blind.  His  con- 
tempt of  flattery  has  been  highly  commended,  but  seems 
when  viewed  in  connection  with  the  rest  of  his  character,  tc 
deserve  no  commendation.  It  is  possible  to  be  below  flattery 
as  well  as  above  it.  One  who  trusts  nobody  will  not  trust 
sycophants.  One  who  does  not  value  real  glory  will  not 
value  its  counterfeit. 

It  is  creditable  to  Charles's  temper  that,  ill  as  he  thought 
of  his  species,  he  never  became  a  misanthrope.  He  saw 
little  in  men  but  what  was  hateful.  Yet  he  did  not  hate 
them.  Nay,  he  was  so  far  humane  that  it  was  highly  dis- 
IK«  c«£fc*greeable  to  him  to  see  their  sufferings  or  to  hear  their  com- 
1  plaints.  This,  however,  is  a  sort  of  humanity  which,  though 
amiable  and  laudable  in  a  private  man  whose  power  to  help 
or  hurt  is  bounded  by  a  narrow  circle,  has  in  princes  often 
been  rather  a  vice  than  a  virtue.  More  than  one  well-disposed 
ruler  has  given  up  whole  provinces  to  rapine  and  oppression, 
merely  from  a  wish  to  see  none  but  happy  faces  round  his 
own  board  and  in  his  own  walks.  No  man  is  fit  to  govern 
great  societies  who  hesitates  about  disobliging  the  few  who 
have  access  to  him  for  the  sake  of  the  many  whom  he  will 
never  see.  The  facility  of  Charles  was  such  as  has  perhaps 
never  been  found  in  any  man  of  equal  sense.  He  was  a 
slave  without  being  a  dupe.  Worthless  men  and  women,  to 
the  very  bottom  of  whose  hearts  he  saw,  and  whom  he  knew 
to  be  destitute  of  affection  for  him  and  undeserving  of  his 
confidence,  could  easily  wheedle  him  out  of  titles,  places, 
domains,  state  secrets,  and  pardons.  He  bestowed  much ;  yet 
he  neither  enjoyed  the  pleasure  or  acquired  the  fame  of 
beneficence.  He  never  gave  spontaneously ;  but  it  was 
painful  to  him  to  refuse.  The  consequence  was,  that  his 
bounty  generally  went,  not  to  those  who  deserved  it  best, 
nor  even,  o  those  whom  he  liked  best,  but  to  the  most 
•  shameless  and  importunate  suitor  who  could  obtain  an 
audience. 

The  motives  which  governed  the  political  conduct  of  Charles 
the  Second  differed  widely  from  those  by  which  his  pred- 
ecessor and  his  successor  were  actuated.  He  was  not  a  man  to 
be  imposed  upon  by  the  patriarchal  theory  of  government 
and  the  doctrine  of  divine  right.  He  was  utterly  without 
ambition.  He  detested  business,  and  would  sooner  have 
abdicated  his  crown  than  have  undergone  the  trouble  of 
really  directing  the  administration.  Such  was  his  aversion  tj 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  133 

toil,  and  such  his  ignorance  of  affairs,  that  the  very  clerks  who 
attended  him  when  he  sate  in  council  could  not  refrain  from 
sneering  at  his  frivolous  remarks,  and  at  his  childish  im- 
patience. Neither  gratitude  nor  revenge  had  any  share  in 
determining  his  course  ;  for  never  was  there  a  mind  on  which 
both  services  and  injuries  left  such  faint  and  transitory  im- 
pressions. He  wished  merely  to  be  a  king  such  as  Lewis 
the  Fifteenth  of  France  afterwards  was  ;  a  king  who  could 
draw  without  limit  on  the  treasury  for  the  gratification  of 
his  private  tastes,  who  could  hire  with  wealth  and  honors 
persons  capable  of  assisting  him  to  kill  the  time,  and  who, 
even  when  the  state  was  brought  by  maladministration  to  the 
depths  of  humiliation  and  to  the  brink  of  ruin,  could  still 
exclude  unwelcome  truth  from  the  purlieus  of  his  own  seraglio, 
and  refuse  to  see  and  hear  whatever  might  disturb  Kis  lux- 
urious repose.  For  these  ends,  and  for  these  ends  alone,  he 
wished  to  obtain  arbitrary  power,  if  it  could  be  obtained 
without  risk  or  trouble.  In  the  religious  disputes  which 
divided  his  Protestant  subjects  his  conscience  was  not  at  all 
interested.  For  his  opinions  oscillated  in  a  state  of  contented 
suspense  between  infidelity  and  Popery.  But,  though  his 
conscience  was  neutral  in  the  quarrel  between  the  Episco- 
palians and  the  Presbyterians,  his  taste  was  by  no  means  so. 
His  favorite  vices  were  precisely  those  to  which  the  Puritans 
were  least  indulgent.  He  could  not  get  through  one  day 
without  the  help  of  diversions  which  the  Puritans  regarded  as 
sinful.  As  a  man  eminently  well  bred,  and  keenly  sensible 
<>f  the  ridiculous,  he  was  moved  to  contemptuous  mirth  by 
the  Puritan  oddities.  ^He  had  indeed  some  reason  to  dislike 
the  rigid  sect.  He  had,  at  the  age  when  the  passions  are 
most  impetuous,  and  when  levity /is  most  pardonable,  spent 
some  months  in  Scotland,  a  king  in  name,  but  in  fact  a  state 
prisoner  in  the  hands  of  austere  Presbyterians.  Not  content 
with  requiring  him  to  conform  to  their  worship  and  to  sub- 
scribe their  covenant,  they  had  watched  all  his  motions,  and 
lectured  him  on  all  his  youthful  follies.  He  had  been  com- 
pelled to  give  reluctant  attendance  at  endless  prayers  and 
sermons,  and  might  think  himself  fortunate  when  he  was  not 
insolently  reminded  from  the  pulpit  of  his  own  frailties,  of 
his  father's  tyranny,  and  of  his  mother's  idolatry.  Indeed  he 
had  been  so  miserable  during  this  part  of  his  life,  that  the 
defeat  which  made  him  again  a  wanderer  might  be  regarded  as 
*  deliverance  rather  than  as  a  calamity.  Under  the  influence 

VOL.    I.  ]2 


134  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  such  feelings  as  these,  Charles  was  desirous  to  depress  the 
party  which  had  resisted  his  father. 

The  king's  brother,  Jamej  Duke  of  York,  took  the  same 
side.  Though  a  libertine,  James  was  diligent,  methodical,  and 
fond  of  authority  and  business.  His  understanding  was  sin- 
•^ularly  slow  and  narrow,  and  his  temper  obstinate,  harsh,  and 
unforgiving.  That  such,a  prince  should  have  looked  with  no 
uood  will  on  the  free  institutions  of  England,  and  on  the  party 
which  was  peculiarly  zealous  for  those  institutions,  can  excite 
no  surprise.  As  yet,  the  duke  professed  himself  a  member 
.)f  the  Anglican  Church ;  but  he  had  already  shown  inclina- 
tions which  had  seriously  alarmed  good  Protestants. 

The  person  on  whom  devolved,  at  this  time,  the  greatest 
juirt  of  the  labor  of  governing,  was  Edward  Hyde,  chancellor 
•if  the  realm,  who  was  soon  created  Earl  of  Clarendon.  The 
respect  which  we  justly  feel  for  Clarendon  as  a  writer  mus; 
not  blind  us  to  the  faults  whiqh  he  committed  as  a  statesman. 
•Some  of  those  faults,  however,  are  explained  and  excused  by 
I  he  unfortunate  position  in  which  he  stood.  He  had,  during 
the  first  year  of  the  Long  Parliament,  been  honorably  dis- 
tinguished among  the  senators  who  labored  to  redress  the 
grievances  of  the  nation.  One  of  the  most  odious  of  those 
grievances,  the  Council  of  York,  had  been  removed  in  conse- 
quence chiefly  of  his  exertions.  When  the  great  schism  took 
place,  when  the  reforming  party  and  the  conservative  party 
first  appeared  marshalled  against  each  other,  he,  with  many 
wise  and  good  men,  took  the  conservative  side.  He  thence- 
forward followed  the  fortunes  of  the  court,  enjoyed  as  large 
a  sfrare  of  the  confidence  of  Charles  thjp  First  as  the  reserved 
nature  and  tortuous  policy  of  that  prince  allowed  to  any  min- 
ister, and  subsequently  shared  the  exile  and  directed  the  polit- 
ical conduct  of  Charles  the  Second.  At  the  Restoration, 
Hyde  became  chief  minister.  In  a  few  months,  it  was 
announced  that  he  was  closely  related  by  affinity  to  the  royal 
house.  His  daughter  had  become,  by  a  secret  marriage, 
Duchess  of  York.  His  grandchildren  might,  perhaps,  wear 
the  crown.  He  was  raised,  by  this  illustrious  connection,  over 
<he  heads  of  the  old  nobility  of  the  land,  and  was  for  a  time 
.supposed  to  be  all  powerful.  In  some  respects,  he  was  well 
fitted  for  his  great  place.  No  man  wrote  abler  state  papers 
No  man  spoke  with  more  weight  and  dignity  in  council  and  in 
parliament.  No  man  was  better  acquainted  with  general 
maxims  of  statecraft.  No  man  observed  the  varieties  of 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  135 

character  with  a  more  discriminating  eye.  It  must  be  added 
that  he  had  a  strong  sense  of  moral  and  religious  obligation,  a 
sincere  reverence  for  the  laws  of  his  country,  and  a  conscien- 
tious regard  for  the  honor  and  interest  of  the  crown.  But  his 
temper  was  sour,  arrogant,  and  impatient  of  opposition.  Above 
all,  he  had  been  long  an  exile ;  and  this  circumstance  alone 
would  have  completely  disqualified  him  for  the  supreme  direc- 
tion of  affairs.  It  is  scarcely  possible  that  a  politician  who 
has  been  compelled  by  civil  troubles  to  go  into  banishment, 
and  to  pass  many  of  the  best  years  of  his  life  abroad,  can  be 
fit,  on  the  day  on  which  he  returns  to  his  native  land,  to  be  at 
the  head  of  the  government.  Clarendon  was  no  exception  to 
this  rule.  He  had  left  England  with  a  mind  heated  by  a  fierce 
conflict  which  had  ended  in  the  downfall  of  his  party  and  of 
his,  own  fortunes.  From  1646  to  1660,  he  had  lived  beyond 
sea,  looking  on  all  that  passed  at  home  from  a  great  distance, 
and  through  a  false  medium.  His  notions  of  public  affairs 
were  necessarily  derived  from  the  reports  of  plotters,  many  of 
whom  were  ruined  and  desperate  men.  Events  naturally 
seemed  to  him  auspicious,  not  in  proportion  as  they  increased 
the  prosperity  and  glory  of  the  nation,  but  in  proportion  as 
they  tended  to  hasten  the  hour  of  his  own  return.  His  wish, 
a  wish  which  he  has  not  disguised,  was  that,  till  his  country- 
men brought  back  the  old  line,  they  might  never  enjoy  quiet 
or  freedom.  At  length  he  returned ;  and,  without  having  a 
single  week  to  look  about  him,  to  mix  with  oociety,  to  note 
the  changes  which  fourteen  eventful  years  had  produced  jn 
the  national  character  and  feelings,  he  was  at  once  set  to  rule 
the  state.  Ir.  such  circumstances,  a  minister  of  the  greatest 
tact  and  docility  would  probably  have  fallen  into  serious  errors. 
But  tact  and  docility  made  no  part  of  the  character  of  Claren- 
don. To  him  England  was  still  the  England  of  his  youth  ; 
and  he  sternly  frowned  down  every  theory  and  every  practice 
which  had  sprung  up  during  his  own  exile.  Though  he  was 
far  from  meditating  any  attack  on  the  ancient  and  undoubted 
power  of  the  House  of  Commons,  he  saw  with  extreme  unea- 
siness the  growth  of  that  power.  The  royal  prerogative,  for 
which  he  had  long  suffered,  and  by  which  he  had  at  length, 
been  raised  to  wealth  and  dignity,  was  sacred  in  his  eyes. 
The  Roundheads  he  regarded  both  with  political  and  With  per- 
sonal aversion.  To  the  Anglican  Church  he  had  always  been 
strongly  attached,  and  had  repeatedly,  where  her  interests 
were  concerned,  separated  himself  with  regret  from  his  dear- 


136  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

est  friends.  His  zeal  for  episcopacy  and  for  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  was  now  more  ardent  than  ever,  and  was 
mingled  with  a  vindictive  hatred  of  the  Puritans,  which  did 
him  little  honor  either  as  a  statesman  or  as  a  Christian. 

Whil«  the  House  of  Commons  which  had  recalled  the  royal 
family  was  sitting,  it  was  impossible  to  effect  the  reestablish- 
ment  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  system.  Not  only  were  the 
intentions  of  the  court  strictly  concealed,  but  assurances  which 
quieted  the  minds  of  the  moderate  Presbyterians  were  given 
by  the  king  in  the  most  solemn  manner.  He  had  promised, 
before  his  restoration,  that  he  would  grant  liberty  of  conscience 
to  his  subjects.  He  now  repeated  that  promise,  and  added  a 
promise  to  use  his  best  endeavors  for  the  purpose  of  effecting 
a  compromise  between  the  contending  sects.  He  wished,  he 
said,  to  see  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  divided  between  bishops 
and  synods.  The  liturgy  should  be  revised  by  a  body  of 
learned  divines,  one  half  of  whom  should  be  Presbyterians. 
The  questions  respecting  the  surplice,  the  posture  at  the  Eu- 
charist, and  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  baptism,  should  be  settled 
in  a  way  which  would  set  tender  consciences  at  ease.  When 
the  king  had  thus  laid  asleep  the  vigilance  of  those  whom  he 
most  feared,  he  dissolved  the  parliament.  He  had  already 
given  his  assent  to  an  act  by  which  an  amnesty  was  granted, 
with  few  exceptions,  to  all  who,  during  the  late  troubles,  had 
been  guilty  of  political  offences ;  and  he  had  obtained  from 
the  Commons  a  grant  for  life  of  taxes,  the  annual  produce  of 
which  was  estimated  at  twelve  hundred  thousand  pounds.  This 
sum,  together  with  the  hereditary  revenue  of  the  crown,  was 
then  amply  sufficient  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  govern- 
ment in  time  of  peace.  Nothing  was  allowed  for  a  standing 
army.  The  nation  was  sick  of  the  very  name  ;  and  the  least 
mention  of  such  a  force  would  have  incensed  and  alarmed  all 
parties. 

Early  in  1661  took  place  a  general  election.  The  people 
were  mad  with  loyal  enthusiasm.  The  capital  was  excited  by 
preparations  for  the  most  splendid  coronation  that  had  ever 
been  known.  The  result  was,  that  a  body  of  representatives 
was  returned,  such  as  England  had  never  yet  seen.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  successful  candidates  were  men  who  had 
fought  for  the  ->rown  and  the  church,  and  whose  minds  nad 
been  exasperated  by  many  injuries  and  insults  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  the  Roundheads.  When  the  members  met,  the  pas- 
aions  which  animated  each  individually  acquired  new  strength 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  137 

from  sympathy.  The  House  of  Commons  was,  during  some 
years,  more  zealous  for  royalty  than  the  king,  more  zealous 
for  episcopacy  than_jthe  bishops.  Charles  and  Clarendon 
were  almosF  terrified  at  the  completeness  of  their  own  success. 
They  found  themselves  in  a  situation  not  unlike  that  in  which 
Lewis  the  Eighteenth  and  the  Duke  of  Richelieu  were  placed 
while  the  chamber  of  1815  was  sitting.  Even  if  the  king  had 
been  desirous  to  fulfil  the  promises  which  he  had  made  to  the 
Presbyterians,  it  would  have  been  out  of  his  power  to  do  so. 
It  was  indeed  only  by  the  strong  exertion  of  his  influence  that 
he  could  prevent  the  victorious  Cavaliers  from  rescinding  the 
act  of  indemnity,  and  retaliating  without  mercy  all  that  they 
had  suffered. 

The  Commons  began  by  resolving  that  every  member 
should,  on  pain  of  expulsion,  take  the  sacrament  according  to 
the  form  prescribed  by  the  old  liturgy,  and  that  the  covenant 
should  be  burned  by  the  hangman  in  Palace  Yard.  An  act 
was  pa'ssed,  which  not  only  acknowledged  the  power  of  the 
sword  to  be  solely  in  the  king,  but  declared  that  in  no  extrem- 
ity whatever  could  the  two  Houses  be  justified  in  withstanding 
him  by  force.  Another  act  was  passed  which  required  every 
officer  of  a  corporation  to  swear  that  he  held  resistance  to  the 
king's  authority  to  be  in  all  cases  unlawful.  A  few  hot-head- 
ed men  wished  to  bring  in  a  bill,  which  should  at  once  annul 
all  the  statutes  passed  by  the  Long  Parliament,  and  should  re- 
store the  Star  Chamber  and  the  High  Commission ;  but  the 
reaction,  violent  as  it  was,  did  not  proceed  quite  to  this  length. 
It  still  continued  to  be  the  law  that  a  parliament  should  be 
held  every  three  years  :  but  the  stringent  clauses  which  direct- 
ed the  returning  officers  to  proceed  to  election  at  the  proper 
time,  even  without  the  royal  writ,  were  repealed.  The  bish- 
ops were  restored  to  their  seats  in  the  Upper  House.  The  old 
ecclesiastical  polity  and  the  old  liturgy  were  revived  without 
any  modification  which  had  any  tendency  to  conciliate  even 
the  most  reasonable  Presbyterians.  Episcopal  ordination  was 
now,  for  the  first  time,  made  an  indispensable  qualification  for 
church  preferment.  About  two  thousand  ministers  of  religion, 
whose  conscience  did  not  suffer  them  to  conform,  were  driven 
from  their  benefices  in  one  day.  The  dominant  party  exult- 
ingly  reminded  the  sufferers  that  the  Long  Parliament,  when 
at  the  height  of  power,  had  turned  out  a  still  greater  number  of 
royalist  divines.  The  reproach  was  but  too  well  founded: 
but  the  Long  Parliament  had  at  least  allowed  to  the  divines 
12* 


138  HISTORY    Of    ENGLAND. 

whom  it  ejected  a  provision  sufficient  to  keep  them  from  stair 
ing  ;  and  this  example  the  Cavaliers,  intoxicated  with  animosi 
ty,  had  not  the  justice  and  humanity  to  follow. 

Then  came  penal  statutes  against  Nonconformists,  statutes 
for  which  precedents  might  too  easily  be  found  in  the  Puritan 
legislation,  but  to  which  the  king  could  not  give  his  assent  with- 
out a  breach  of  promises  publicly  made,  in  the  most  important 
crisis  of  his  life,  to  those  on  whom  his  fate  depended.  The 
Presbyterians,  in  extreme  distress  and  terror,  fled  to  the  foot 
of  the  throne,  and  pleaded  their  recent  services  and  the  royal 
faith  solemnly  and  repeatedly  plighted.  The  king  wavered. 
He  could  not  deny  his  own  hand  and  seal.  He  could  not  but 
be  conscious  that  he  owed  much  to  the  petitioners.  He  was 
little  in  the  habit  of  resisting  importunate  solicitation.  Hig 
temper  was  not  that  of  a  persecutor.  He  disliked  the  Puritans 
indeed ;  but  in  him  dislike  was  a  languid  feeling,  very  little 
resembling  the  energetic  hatred  which  had  burned  in  the  heart 
of  Laud.  He  was,  moreover,  partial  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion ;  and  he  knew  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  grant 
liberty  of  worship  to  the  professors  of  that  religion  without 
extending  the  same  indulgence  to  Protestant  dissenters.  He 
therefore  made  a  feeble  attempt  to  restrain  the  intolerant  zeal 
of  the  House  of  Commons ;  but  that  house  was  under  the  in- 
fluence of  far  deeper  convictions  and  far  stronger  passions 
than  his  own.  After  a  faint  struggle  he  yielded,  and  passed, 
with  the  show  of  alacrity,  a  series  of  odious  acts  against  the 
separatists.  It  was  made  a  crime  to  attend  a  dissenting  place 
of  worship.  A  single  justice  of  the  peace  might  convict 
without  a  jury,  and  might,  for  the  third  offence,  pass  sentence 
of  transportation  beyond  sea  for  seven  years.  With  refined 
cruelty  it  was  provided  that  the  offender  should  not  be  trans- 
ported to  New  England,  where  he  was  likely  to  find  sympa- 
thizing friends.  If  he  returned  to  his  own  country  before 
the  expiration  of  his  term  of  exile,  he  was  liable  to  capital 
punishment.  A  new  and  most  unreasonable  test  was  imposed 
on  divines  who  had  been  deprived  of  their  benefices  for  non-, 
conformity  ;  and  all  who  re 'used  to  take  it  were  prohibited 
from  coming  within  five  miles  of  any  town  which  was  gov- 
erned by  a  corporation,  of  any  town  which  was  represented  in 
parliament,  or  of  any  town  where  they  had  themselves  resided 
as  ministers.  The  magistrates,  by  whom  these  rigorous  stat- 
ites  were  to  be  enforced,  were  in  general  men  inflamed  by 
party  spirit  and  by  the  remembrance  of  wrongs  which  they 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  139 

had  themselves  suffered  in  the  time  of  the  Commonwealth. 
The  jails  were  therefore  soon  crowded  with  dissenters ;  and 
among  the  sufferers  were  some  of  whose  genius  and  virtue 
any  Christian  society  might  well  be  proud. 

The  Church  of  England  was  not  ungrateful  for  the  protec- 
tion which  she  received  from  the  government.  From  the  first 
day  of  her  existence,  she  had  been  attached  to  monarchy.  But 
during  the  quarter  of  a  century  which  followed  the  Restora- 
tion, her  zeal  for  royal  authority  and  hereditary  right  passed 
all  bounds.  She  had  suffered  with  the  House  of  Stuart.  She 
had  been  restored  with  that  house.  She  was  connected  with 
it  by  common  interests,  friendships,  and  enmities.  It  seemed 
impossible  that  a  day  should  ever  come  when  the  ties  which 
bound  her  to  the  children  of  her  august  martyr  would  be  sun- 
dered, and  when  the  loyalty  in  which  she  gloried  would  cease 
to  be  a  pleasing  and  profitable  duty.  She  accordingly  magni- 
fied in  fulsome  phrase  that  prerogative  which  was  constantly 
employed  to  defend  and  to  aggrandize  her,  and  reprobated, 
much  at  her  ease,  the  depravity  of  those  whom  oppression, 
from  which  she  was  exempt,  had  goaded  to  rebellion.  Her 
favorite"  theme  was  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance.  That  doc- 
Irine  she  taught  without  any  qualification,  and  followed  out 
to  all  its  extreme  consequences.  Her  disciples  were  never 
weary  of  repeating  that  in  no  conceivable  case,  not  even  if 
England  were  cursed  with  a  king  resembling  Busiris  or  Phal- 
aris,  who,  in  defiance  of  law,  and  without  the  pretence  of 
justice,  should  daily  doom  hundreds  of  innocent  victims  to  tor- 
ture and  death,  would  all  the  estates  of  the  realm  united  be 
justified  in  withstanding  his  tyranny  by  physical  force.  Hap- 
pily the  principles  of  human  nature  afford  abundant  security 
that  such  theories  will  never  be  more  than  theories.  The  day 
of  trial  came ;  and  the  very  men  who  had  most  loudly  and 
most  sincerely  professed  this  extravagant  loyalty  were,  in 
almost  every  county  of  England,  arrayed  in  arms  against  the 
throne. 

Property  all  over  the  kingdom  was  now  again  changing 
hands.  The  national  sales,  not  having  been  confirmed  by 
parliament,  were  regarded  by  the  tribunals  as  nullities.  The 
sovereign,  the  bishops,  the  deans,  the  chapters,  the  royalist 
nobility  and  gentry,  reentered  on  their  confiscated  estates,  and 
ejected  even  purchasers  who  had  given  fair  prices.  The  losses 
which  the  Cavaliers  had  sustained  during  the  ascendency  of 
their  opponents  were  thus  in  part  repaired  ;  but  in  part  only 


140  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

All  actions  for  rnesne  profits  were  effectually  barred  by  the 
general  amnesty ;  and  the  numerous  royalists  who,  in  order  to 
discharge  fines  imposed  by  The  parliament,  or  in  order  to  pur- 
chase the  favor  of  powerful  Roundheads,  had  sold  land  for 
much  less  than  the  real  value,  were  not  relieved  from  the 
legal  consequences  of  their  own  acts. 

While  these  changes  were  in  progress,  a  change  still  more 
important  took  place  in  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  com- 
munity. Those  passions  and  tastes  which,  under  the  rule  of 
the  Puritans,  had  been  sternly  repressed,  and,  if  gratified  at 
all,  had  been  gratified  by  stealth,  broke  forth  with  ungoverna- 
ble violence  as  soon  as  the  check  was  withdrawn.  Men  flew 
to  frivolous  amusements  and  to  criminal  pleasures  with  the 
greediness  which  long  and  enforced  abstinence  naturally  pro- 
duces. Little  restraint  was  imposed  by  public  opinion.  Fqr 
the  nation,  nauseated  with  cant,  suspicious  of  all  pretensions 
to  sanctity,  and  still  smarting  from  the  recent  tyranny  of 
rulers  austere  in  life  and  powerful  in  prayer,  looked  for  a 
time  with  complacency  on  the  softer  and  gayer  vices.  Still 
less  restraint  was  imposed  by  the  government.  Indeed  there 
was  no  excess  which  was  not  encouraged  by  the  ostentatious 
profligacy  of  the  king  and  of  his  favorite  courtiers.  A  few 
counsellors  of  Charles  the  First,  who  were  now  no  longer 
young,  retained  the  decorous  gravity  which  had  been  thirty 
years  before  in  fashion  at  Whitehall.  Such  were  Clarendon 
himself,  and  his  friends,  Thomas  Wriothesley,  Earl  of  South- 
ampton, Lord  Treasurer,  and  James  Butler,  Duke  of  Ormond, 
who,  having  through  many  vicissitudes  struggled  gallantly  for 
the  royal  cause  in  Ireland,  now  governed  that  kingdom  as 
lord  lieutenant.  But  neither  the  memory  of  the  services  of 
these  men,  nor  their  great  power  in  the  state,  could  protect 
them  from  the  sarcasms  which  modish  vice  loves  to  dart  at 
obsolete  virtue.  The  praise  of  politeness  and  vivacity  could 
now  scarcely  be  obtained  except  by  some  violation  of  deco- 
rum. Talents  great  and  various  assisted  to  spread  the  conta- 
gion. Ethical  philosophy  had  recently  taken  a  form  well 
suited  to  please  a  generation  equally  devoted  to  monarchy 
and  to  vice.  Thomas  Hobbes  had,  in  language  more  precise 
and  luminous  than  has  ever  been  employed  by  any  other 
metaphysical  writer,  maintained  that  the  will  of  the  prince 
was  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  and  that  every  subject 
ought  to  be  ready  to  profess  Popery,  Mahometanism,  or  Pagan- 
ism, at  the  royal  command.  Thousands  who  were  incompe- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  141 

tent  to  appreciate  what  was  really  valuable  in  his  metaphysical 
speculations,  eagerly  welcomed  a  theory  which,  while  it  ex- 
altecLthe  kingly  office,  relaxed  the  obligations  of  morality,  and 
degraded  religion  into  a  mere  affair  of  state.  Hobbism  soon 
became  an  almost  essential  part  of  the  character  of  the  fine 
gentleman.  All  the  lighter  kinds  of  literature  were  deeply 
tainted  by  the  prevailing  licentiousness.  Poetry  stooped  to  be 
the  pandar  of  every  low  desire.  Ridicule,  instead  of  putting 
guilt  and  error  to  the  blush,  turned  her  formidable  shafts 
against  innocence  and  truth.  The  restored  Church  contended 
indeed  against  the  prevailing  immorality,  but  contended  feebly, 
and  with  half  a  heart.  It  was  necessary  to  the  decorum  of 
her  character  that  she  should  admonish  her  erring  children. 
But  her  admonitions  were  given  in  a  somewhat  perfunctory 
manner.  Her  attention  was  elsewhere  engaged.  Her  whole 
soul  was  in  the  work  of  crushing  the  Puritans,  and  of  teach- 
ing her  disciples  to  give  unto  Ca?sar  the  things  which  were 
Caesar's.  She  had  been  pillaged  and  oppressed  by  the  party 
which  preached  an  austere  morality.  She  had  been  restored 
to  opulence  and  honor  by  libertines.  Little  as  the  men  of 
mirth  and  fashion  were  disposed  to  shape  their  lives  according 
to  her  precepts,  they  were  yet  ready  to  fight  knee  deep  in  blood 
for  her  cathedrals  and  palaces,  for  every  line  of  her  rubric 
and  every  thread  of  her  vestments.  If  the  debauched  Cavalier 
haunted  brothels  and  gambling-houses,  he  at  least  avoided 
conventicles.  If  he  never  spoke  without  uttering  ribaldry  and 
blasphemy,  he  made  some  amends  by  his  eagerness  to  send 
Baxter  and  Howe  to  jail  for  preaching  and  praying.  Thus 
the  clergy,  for  a  time,  made  war  on  schism  with  so  much 
vigor  that  they  had  little  leisure  to  make  war  on  vice.  The 
ribaldry  of  Etherege  and  Wycherley  was,  in  the  presence 
and  under  the  special  sanction  of  the  head  of  the  Church, 
publicly  recited  by  female  lips  in  female  ears,  while  the  au- 
thor of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  languished  in  a  dungeon  for  the 
crime  of  proclaiming  the  gospel  to  the  poor.  It  is  an  unques- 
tionable and  a  most  instructive  fact,  that  the  years  during 
which  the  political  power  of  the  Anglican  hierarchy  was  in 
the  zenith  were  precisely  the  years  during  which  national  vir- 
tue was  at  the  lowest  point. 

Scarcely  any  rank  or  profession  escaped  the  infection  of 
the  prevailing  immorality;  but  those  persons  who  made  poli- 
tics their  business  were  perhaps  the  most  corrupt  part  of  the 
corrupt  society.  For  they  were  exposed,  not  only  to  the 


142  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

same  noxious  influences  which  affected  the  nation  generally 
but  also  to  a  taint  of  a  peculiar  and  of  a  most  malignant  kind 
Their  character  had  been  formed  amidst  frequent  and  violent 
revolutions  and  counter-revolutions.  In  the  course  of  a  few 
years  they  had  seen  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  polity  of  their 
country  repeatedly  changed.  They  had  seen  an  Episcopal 
Church  persecuting  Puritans,  a  Puritan  Church  persecuting 
Episcopalians,  and  an  Episcopal  Church  persecuting  Puritans 
again.  They  had  seen  hereditary  monarchy  abolished  and 
restored.  They  had  seen  the  Long  Parliament  thrice  supreme 
in  the  state  and  thrice  dissolved  amidst  the  curses  and  laugh- 
ter of  millions.  They  had  seen  a  new  dynasty  rapidly  rising 
to  the  height  of  power  and  glory,  and  then  on  a  sudden  hurled 
down  from  the  chair  of  state  without  a  struggle.  They  had 
seen  a  new  representative  system  devised,  tried,  and  aban- 
doned. They  had  seen  a  new  House  of  Lords  created  and 
scattered.  They  had  seen  great  masses  of  property  violently 
transferred  from  Cavaliers  to  Roundheads,  and  from  Round- 
heads back  to  Cavaliers.  During  these  events  no  man  could 
be  a  stirring  and  thriving  politician  who  was  not  prepared  to 
change  with  every  change  of  fortune.  It  was  only  in  retire- 
ment that  any  person  could  long  keep  the  character  either  of 
a  steady  royalist  or  of  a  steady  republican.  One  who,  in 
such  an  age,  is  determined  to  attain  civil  greatness  must  re- 
nounce all  thought  of  consistency.  Instead  of  affecting  im- 
mutability in  the  midst  of  endless  mutation,  he  must  be  always 
on  the  watch  for  the  indications  of  a  coming  reaction.  He 
must  seize  the  exact  moment  for  deserting  a  falling  cause. 
Having  gone  all  lengths  with  a  faction  while  it  was  uppermost, 
he  must  suddenly  extricate  himself  from  it  when  its  difficul- 
ties begin,  must  assail  it,  must  persecute  it,  must  enter  on  a 
new  career  of  power  and  prosperity  in  company  with  new 
associates.  His  situation  naturally  develops  in  him  to  the 
highest  degree  a  peculiar  class  of  abilities  and  a  peculiar 
class  of  vices.  He  becomes  quick  of  observation  and  fertile 
of  resource.  He  catches  without  effort  the  tone  of  any  sect 
or  party  with  which  he  chances  to  mingle.  He  discerns  the 
signs  of  the  times  with  a  sagacity  which  to  the  multitude  ap- 
pears miraculous,  with  a  sagacity  resembling  that  with  which 
a  veteran  police  officer  pursues  the  faintest  indications  of 
crime,  or  with  which  a  Mohawk  warrior  follows  a  track  through 
the  woods.  But  we  shall  seldom  find,  in  a  statesman  so  trained 
integrity,  constancy,  or  any  of  the  virtues  of  the  noble  family 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  143 

of  Truth.  He  has  no  faith  in  any  doctrine,,  no  zeal  for  any 
cause.  He  has  seen  so  many  old  institutions  swept  away, 
that  he  has  no  reverence  for  prescription.  He  has  seen  so 
many  new  institutions  from  which  much  had  been  expected 
produce  mere  disappointment^  that  he  has  no  hope  of  improve- 
ment. He  sneers  alike  at  those  who  are  anxious  to  preserve 
and  at  those  who  are  eager  to  reform.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  state  which  he  could  not,  without  a  scruple  or  a  blush, 
join  in  defending  or  in  destroying.  Fidelity  to  opinions  and  to 
friends  seems  to  him  mere  dulness  and  wrongheadedness. 
Politics  he  regards,  not  as  a  science  of  which  the  object  is 
the  happiness  of  mankind,  but  as  an  exciting  game  of  mixed 
chance  and  skill,  at  which  a  dexterous  and  lucky  player  may 
vin  an  estate,  a  coronet,  perhaps  a  crown,  and  at  which  one 
rash  move  may  lead  to  the  loss  of  fortune  and  of  life. 
Ambition,  which,  in  good  times  and  in  good  minds,  is  half  a 
virtue,  now,  disjoined  from  every  elevated  and  philanthropic 
sentiment,  becomes  a  selfish  cupidity  scarcely  less  ignoble 
than  avarice.  Among  those  politicians  who,  from  the  Res- 
toration to  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  were  at 
the  head  of  the  great  parties  in  the  state,  very  few  can.  be 
named  whose  reputation  is  not  stained  by  what,  in  our  age, 
would  be  called  gross  perfidy  and  corruption.  It  is  scarcely 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  most  unprincipled  public  men 
who  have  taken  part  in  affairs  within  our  memory  would,  if 
tried  by  the  standard  which  was  in  fashion  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeeth  century,  deserve  to  be  regarded  as 
scrupulous  and  disinterested. 

While  these  political,  religious,  and  moral  changes  were 
taking  place  in  England,  the  royal  authority  had  been  with- 
out difficulty  reestablished  in  every  other  part  of  the  British 
islands.  In  Scotland  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts  had  been 
hailed  with  delight ;  for  it  was  regarded  as  the  restoration 
of  national  independence.  And  true  it  was  that  the  yoke 
which  Cromwell  had  imposed  was,  in  appearance,  taker 
away,  that  the  Estates  again  met  in  their  old  hall  at  Edinburgh, 
and  that  the  Senators  of  the  College  of  Justice  again  ad 
ministered  the  Scottish  law  according  to  the  old  forms.  Ye< 
ivas  the  independence  of  the  little  kingdom  necessarily  rathei 
.aoniinal  than  real ;  for,  as  long  as  the  king  had  England  or 
his  side,  he  had  nothing  to  apprehend  from  disaffection  in  his 
ether  dominions.  He  was  now  in  such  a  situation  that  h< 
could  renew  the  attempt  which  had  provec  destructive  to  hii 


144  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

father  without  any  danger  of  his  father's  fate.  Charles  the 
First  had  tried  to  force  his  own  religion  by  his  regal  power 
on  the  Scots  at  a  moment  when  both  his  religion  and  his 
regal  power  were  unpopular  in  England  ;  and  he  had  not 
only  failed,  but  had  raised  troubles  which  had  ultimately  cost 
him  his  crown  and  his  head.  Times  had  now  changed  ; 
England  was  zealous  for  monarchy  and  prelacy  ;  and  there- 
fore the  scheme  which  in  the  preceding  generation  had  been 
in  the  highest  degree  imprudent  might  be  resumed  with  little 
risk  to  the  throne.  The  government  resolved  to  set  up  a 
prelatical  church  in  Scotland.  The  design  was  disapproved 
by  every  Scotchman  whose  judgment  was  entitled  to  respect. 
Some  Scottish  statesmen  who  a  ere  zealous  for  the  king's 
prerogative  had  been  bred  Presbyterians.  Though  little 
troubled  with  scruples,  they  retained  a  preference  for 
the  religion  of  their  childhood  ;  and  they  well  knew  how 
strong  a  hold  that  religion  had  on  the  hearts  of  their  country- 
men. They  remonstrated  strongly ;  but,  when  they  found 
that  they  remonstrated  in  vain,  they  had  not  virtue  enough  to 
persist  in  an  opposition  which  would  have  given  offence  to 
their  master ;  and  several  of  them  stooped  to  the  wickedness 
and  baseness  of  persecuting  what  in  their  consciences  they 
believed  to  be  the  purest  form  of  Christianity.  •  The  Scottish 
parliament  was  so  constituted  that  it  had  scarcely  ever  offered 
any  serious  opposition  even  to  kings  much  weaker  than 
Charles  then  was.  Episcopacy,  therefore,  was  established  by 
law.  As  to  the  form  of  worship,  a  large  discretion  was  left 
to  the  clergy.  In  some  churches  the  English  liturgy  was 
used.  In  others  the  ministers  selected  from  that  liturgy  such 
prayers  and  thanksgivings  as  were  likely  to  be  least  offensive 
to  the  people.  But  in  general  the  doxology  was  sung  at  the 
close  of  public  worship,  and  the  Apostles'  Creed  was  recited 
when  baptism  was  administered.  By  the  great  body  of  the 
Scottish  nation  the  new  church  was  detested  both  as  super- 
stitious and  as  foreign ;  as  tainted  with  the  corruptions  of 
•Rome,  and  as  a  mark  of  the  predominance  of  England.  There 
was,  however,  no  general  insurrection.  The  country  was 
not  what  it  had  been  twenty-two  years  before.  Disastrous 
war  and  alien  domination  had  tamed  the  spirit  of  the  people. 
The  aristocracy,  which  was  held  in  great  honor  by  the  middle 
class  and  by  the  populace,  had  put  itself  at  the  head  of  the 
movement  against  Charles  the  First,  but  proved  obsequious 
to  Charles  the  Second.  From  the  English  Puritans  no  aid 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  145 

was  now  to  be  expected.  They  were  a  feeble  party,  pro- 
scribed both  by  law  and  by  public  opinion.  The  bulk  of  the 
Scottish  nation,  therefore,  sullenly  submitted;  and,  with  many 
misgivings  of  conscience,  attended  the  ministrations  of  the 
Episcopal  clergy,  or  of  Presbyterian  divines  who  had  con 
sented  to  accept  from  the  government  a  half  toleration,  known 
oy  the  name  of  the  Indulgence.  But  there  were,  partic- 
ularly in  the  western  lowlands,  many  fierce  and  resolute 
men,  who  held  that  the  obligation  to  observe  the  covenant 
was  paramount  to  the  obligation  to  obey  the  magistrate.  These 
people,  in  defiance  of  the  law,  persisted  in  meeting  to  worship 
God  after  their  own  fashion.  The  Indulgence  they  regarded, 
not  as  a  partial  reparation  of  the  wrongs  inflicted  by  the 
magistrate  on  the  church,  but  as  a  new  wrong,  the  more 
odious  because  it  was  disguised  under  the  appearance  of  a 
benefit.  Persecution,  they  said,  could  only  kill  the  body ; 
but  the  black  Indulgence  was  deadly  to  the  soul.  Driven 
from  the  towns,  they  assembled  on  heaths  and  mountains. 
Attacked  by  the  civil  power,  they  without  scruple  repelled 
force  by  force.  At  every  conventicle  they  mustered  in  arms. 
They  repeatedly  broke  out  into  open  rebellion.  They  were 
easily  defeated,  and  mercilessly  punished  ;  but  neither  defeat 
nor  punishment  could  subdue  their  spirit.  Hunted  down  like 
wild  beasts,  tortured  till  their  bones  were  beaten  flat,  impris- 
oned by  hundreds,  hanged  by  scores,  exposed  at  one  time  to 
the  license  of  soldiers  from  England,  abandoned  at  another  time 
to  the  mercy  of  bands  of  marauders  from  the  highlands,  they 
still  stood  at  bay  in  a  mood  so  savage  that  the  boldest  and  mighti- 
est oppressor  could  'not  but  dread  the  audacity  of  their  despair. 
Such  was,  during  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the 
state  of  Scotland.  Ireland  was  not  less  distracted.  •  In  that 
island  existed  feuds,  compared  with  which  the  hottest  animos- 
itie's  of  English  politicians  were  lukewarm.  The  enmity 
between  the  Irish  Cavaliers  and  the  Irish  Roundheads  was 
almost  forgotten  in  the  fiercer  enmity  which  raged  between 
the  English  and  the  Celtic  races.  The  interval  between  the 
Episcopalian  and  the  Presbyterian  seemed  to  vanish,  when 
compared  with  the  interval  which  separated  both  from  the 
Papist.  During  the  late  civil  troubles  one  hc.lf  of  the  Irish 
soil  had  been  transferred  from  the  vanquished  nation  to  the 
victors.  To  the  favor  of  the  crown  few  either  of  the  old  or 
of  the  new  occupants  had  any  pretensions.  The  despoilers  and 
the  despoiled  had,  for  the  most  part,  been  rebels  alike.  The 
•VOL.  I.  13 


146  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

government  was  soon  perplexed  and  wearied  by  the  conflicting 
claims  an  d  mutual  accusations  of  the  two  incensed  factions. 
Those  colonists  among  whom  Cromwell  had  portioned  out 
the  conquered  territory,  and  whose  descendants  are  still 
called  Cromwellians,  represented  that  the  aboriginal  inhab- 
itants were  deadly  enemies  of  the  English  nation  under  every 
dynasty,  and  of  the  Protestant  religion  in  every  form.  They 
described  and  exaggerated  the  atrocities  which  had  disgraced 
the  insurrection  of  Ulster  ;  they  urged  the  king  to  follow  up 
with  resolution  the  policy  of  the  Protector  ;  and  they  were 
not  ashamed  to  hint  that  there  would  never  be  peace  in  Ire- 
land till  the  old  Irish  race  should  be  extirpated.  The  Roman 
Catholics  extenuated  their  offence  as  iKey  best  might,  and 
expatiated  in  piteous  language  on  the  severity  of  their  punish- 
ment^ "which,  in  truth,  had  not  been  lenient.  They  implored 
Charles  not  to  confound  the  innocent  with  the  guilty,  and 
reminded  him  that  many  of  the  guilty  had  atoned  for  their 
fault  by  returning  to  their  allegiance,  and  by  defending  his 
rights  against  the  murderers  of  his  father.  The  court,  sick 
of  the  importunities  of  two  parties,  neither  of  which  it  had 
any  reason  to  love,  at  length  relieved  itself  from  trouble  by 
dictating  a  compromise.  That  cruel,  but  most  complete  and 
energetic  system,  by  which  Oliver  had  proposed  to  make  the 
island  thoroughly  English,  was  abandoned.  The  Cromwell- 
ians were  induced  to  relinquish  a  third  part  of  their  acquisi- 
tions. The  land  thus  surrendered  was  capriciously  divided 
among  claimants  whom  the  government  chose  to  favor.  But 
great  numbers  who  protested  that  they  were  innocent  of  all 
disloyalty,  and  some  persons  who  boasted  that  their  loyalty 
had  been  signally  displayed,  obtained  neither  restitution  nor 
compensation,  and  filled  France  and  Spam  with  outcries 
against  the  injustice  and  ingratitude  of  the  House  of  Stuart. 

Meantime  the  government  had,  even  in  England,  ceased-  to 
be  popular.  The  royalists  had  begun  to  quarrel  with  the 
court  and  with  each  other;  and  the  party  which  had  been 
vanquished,  trampled  down,  and,  as  it  seemed,  annihilated, 
but  which  had  still  retained  a  strong  principle  of  life,  again 
raised  its  head,  and  renewed  the  interminable  war. 

Had  the  administration  been  faultless,  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  the  return  of  the  king  and  the  termination  of  the  mili- 
tary tyranny  had  been  hailed  could  not  have  been  permanent. 
For  it  is  the  law  of  our  nature  that  such  fits  of  excitement 
shall  always  be  followed  by  remissions.  The  manner  in  which 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  147 

tne  court  abused  its  victory  made  the  remission  speedy  and 
complete.  Every  moderate  man  was  shocked  by  the  inso- 
lence, cruelty,  and  perfidy  with  which  ihfi  Nonconformists 
were  treated.  The  penal  laws  had  effectually  purged  the  op- 
pressed party  of  those  insincere  members  whose  vices  had  dis- 
graced it,  and  had  made  it  again  an  honest  and  pious  body  of 
men.  The  Puritan,  a  conqueror,  a  ruler,  a  persecutor,  a  se- 
questrator,  had  been  detested.  The  Puritan,  betrayed  and 
evil-entreated,  deserted  by  all  the  time-servers  who,  in  his 
prosperity,  had  claimed  brotherhood  with  him,  hunted  from 
his  home,  forbidden  under  severe  penalties  to  pray  or  receive 
the  sacrament  according  to  his  conscience,  yet  still  firm  in  his 
resolution  to  obey  God  rather  than  man,  was,  in  spite  of  some 
unpleasing  recollections,  an  object  of  pity  and  respect  to  well- 
constituted  minds.  These  feelings  became  stronger  when  it 
was  noised  abroad  that  the  court  was  not  disposed  to  treat  Pa- 
pists with  the  same  rigor  which  had  been  shown  to  Presbyte- 
rians. A  vague  suspicion  that  the  king  and  the  duke  were 
not  sincere  Protestants  sprung  up  in  many  minds.  Many  too 
who  had  been  disgusted  by  the  austerity  and  hypocrisy  of  the 
Pharisees  of  the  Commonwealth  began  to  be  still  more  dis- 
gusted by  the  open  profligacy  of  the  court  and  of  the  Cava- 
liers, and  were  disposed  to  doubt  whether  the  sullen  preciseness 
of  Praise  God  Barebone  might  not  be  preferable  to  the  outra- 
geous profaneness  and  licentiousness  of  the  Buckinghams  and 
Sedleys.  Even  immoral  men,  who  were  not  utterly  destitute 
of  sense  and  public  spirit,  complained  that  the  government 
treated  the  most  serious  matters  as  trifles,  and  made  trifles  its 
serious  business.  A  king  might  be  pardoned  for  amusing  his 
leisure  with  wine,  wit,  and  beauty.  But  it  was  intolerable 
that  he  should  sink  into  a  mere  saunterer  and  voluptuary,  that 
the  gravest  affairs  of  state  should  be  neglected,  and  that  the 
public  service  should  be  starved  and  the  finances  deranged  in 
order  that  harlots  and  parasites  might  grow  rich. 

A  large  body  of  royalists  joined  in  these  complaints,  and 
added  many  sharp  reflections  on  the  king's  ingratitude.  His 
whole  revenue,  indeed,  would  not  have  sufficed  to  reward  them 
all  in  proportion  to  their  own  consciousness  of  desert.  For  to 
every  distressed  gentleman  who  had  fought  under  Rupert  or 
Derby  his  own  services  seemed  eminently  meritorious,  and  his 
own  sufferings  eminently  severe.  Every  one  had  flattered 
himself  that,  whatever  became  of  the  rest,  he  should  be  largely 
recompensed  for  all  that  he  had'  lost  during  the  civil  troubles, 


148  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

and  that  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy  would  be  followed 
by  the  restoration  of  his  own  dilapidated  fortunes.  None  of 
these  expectants  could  restrain  his  indignation,  when  he  founa 
that  he  was  as  poor  under  the  king  as  he  had  been  under  the 
Rump  or  the  Protector.  The  negligence  and  extravagance 
of  the  court  excited  the  bitter  indignation  of  these  loyal  vet- 
erans. They  justly  said  that  one  half  of  what  the  king  squan- 
dered on  concubines  and  buffoons  would  gladden  the  hearts 
of  hundreds  of  old  Cavaliers  who,  after  cutting  down  their  oaks 
and  melting  their  plate  to  help  his  father,  now  wandered  about 
in  threadbare  suits,  and  did  not  know  where  to  turn  for  a  meal. 

At  the  same  time  a  sudden  fall  of  rents  took  place.  The 
income  of  every  landed  proprietor  was  diminished  by  five 
shillings  in  the  pound.  The  cry  of  agricultural  distress  rose 
from  every  shire  in  the  kingdom ;  and  for  that  distress  the 
government  was,  as  usual,  held  accountable.  The  gentry, 
compelled  to  retrench  their  expenses  for  a  period,  saw  with 
indignation  the  increasing  splendor  and  profusion  of  Whitehall, 
and  were  immovably  fixed  in  the  belief  that  the  money  which 
ought  to  have  supported  their  households  had,  by  some  inex- 
plicable process,  gone  to  the  favorites  of  the  king. 

The  minds  of  men  were  now  in  such  a  temper  that  every 
public  act  excited  discontent.  Charles  had  taken  to  wife 
Catharine,  Princess  of  Portugal.  The  marriage  was  generally 
disliked ;  and  the  murmurs  became  loud  when  it  appeared 
that  the  king  was  not  likely  to  have  any  legitimate  posterity. 
Dunkirk,  won  by  Oliver  from  Spain,  was  sold  to  Lewis  the 
Fourteenth,  king  of  France.  This  excited  general  indigna- 
tion. Englishmen  were  already  beginning  to  observe  with 
uneasiness  the  progress  of  the  French  power,  and  to  regard 
the  House  of  Bourbon  with  the  same  feelings  with  which  their 
grandfathers  had  regarded  the  House  of  Austria.  Was  it 
wise,  men  asked,  at  such  a  time,  to  make  any  addition  to  the 
strength  of  a  monarchy  already  too  formidable  ?  Dunkirk 
was,  moreover,  prized  by  the  people,  not  merely  as  a  place 
of  arms,  and  as  a  key  to  the  Low  Countries,  but  also  as  a  tro- 
phy of  English  valor.  It  was  to  the  subjects  of  Charles  what 
Calais  had  been  to  an  earlier  generation,  and  what  the  rock 
of  Gibraltar,  so  manfully  defended,  through  disastrous  and 
perilous  years,  against  the  fleets  and  armies  of  a  mighty  coali- 
tion, is  to  ourselves.  The  plea  of  economy  might  have  had 
some  weight,  if  it  had  been  urged  by  an  economical  govern- 
ment.' But  it  was  notorious  ttiat  the  charges  of  Dunkirk  fell 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  149 

far  shcrt  of  the  sums  which  were  wasted  at  court  in  vice  and 
folly.  It  seemed  insupportable  that  a  sovereign,  profuse  be- 
yond example  in  all  that  regarded  his  own  pleasures,  shouic 
be  niggardly  in  all  that  regarded  the  safety  and  honor  of 
the  state. 

The  public  discontent  was  heightened,  when  it  was  found 
that,  while  Dunkirk  was  abandoned  on  the  plea  of  economy, 
the  fortress  of  Tangier,  which  was  part  of  the  dower  of  Queen 
Catharine,  was  repaired  and  kept  up  at  an  enormous  charge. 
That  place  was  associated  with  no  recollections  gratifying  to 
the  national  pride.  It  could  in  no  way  promote  the  national 
interest.  It  involved  the  country  in  an  inglorious,  unprofita- 
ble, and  interminable  war  with  tribes  of  half  savage  Mussul- 
mans ;  and  it  was  situated  in  a  climate  singularly  unfavorable 
to  the  health  and  vigor  of  the  English  race. 

But  the  murmurs  excited  by  these  errors  were  Saint,  when 
compared  with  the  clamors  which  soon  broke  forth.  The 
government  engaged  in  war  with  the  United  Provinces.  The 
House  of  Commons  readily  voted  sums  unexampled  in  our 
history,  sums  exceeding  those  which  had  supported  the  fleets 
and  armies  of  Cromwell  at  the  time  when  his  power  was  the 
terror  of  all  the  world.  But  such  were  the  extravagance,  dis- 
honesty, and  incapacity,  of  those  who  had  succeeded  to  his 
authority,  that  this  liberality  proved  worse  than  useless.  The 
sycophants  of  the  court,  ill  qualified  to  contend  against  the 
great  men  who  then  directed  the  arms  of  Holland,  against 
such  a  statesman  as  De  Witt,  and  such  a  commander  as  De 
Ruyter,  made  fortunes  rapidly,  while  the  sailors  mutinied  from 
very  hunger,  while  the  dock-yards  were  unguarded,  while  the 
ships  were  leaky  and  without  rigging.  It  was  at  length  de- 
termined to  abandon  all  schemes  of  offensive  war ;  and  it  soon 
appeared  that  even  a  defensive  war  was  a  task  too  hard  for 
that  administration.  The  Dutch  fleet  sailed  up  the  Thames, 
and  burned  the  ships  of  war  which  lay  at  Chatham.  It  was 
said  that,  on  the  very  day  of  that  great  humiliation,  the  king 
feasted  with  the  ladies  of  his  seraglio,  and  amused  himself 
with  hunting  a  moth  about  the  supper  room.  Then,  at  length, 
tardy  justice  was  done  to  the  memory  of  Oliver.  Every 
where  men  magnified  his  valor,  genius,  and  patriotism. 
Every  wheie  it  was  remembered  how,  when  ho  ruled,  all 
foreign  powers  had  trembled  at  the  name  of  England,  how 
the  States  General,  now  so  haughty,  had  crouched  at  his  feet, 
and  how,  when  it  was  known  that  he  was  no  more,  Amsterdam 
13* 


150  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 

was  lighted  up  as  for  a  great  deliverance,  and  chi  dren  ian 
along  the  canals,  shouting  for  joy  that  the  devil  was  dead 
Even  royalists  exclaimed  that  the  state  could  be  saved  only 
by  calling  the  old  soldiers  of  the  Commonwealth  to  arms. 
Soon  the  capital  began  to  feel  the  miseries  of  a  blockade. 
Fuel  was  scarcely  to  be  procured.  Tilbury  Fort,  the  place 
where  Elizabeth  had,  with  manly  spirit,  hurled  foul  scorn  at 
Parma  and  Spain,  was  insulted  by  the  invaders.  The  roar  of 
foreign  guns  was  heard,  for  the  first  and  last  time,  by  the  citi- 
zens of  London.  In  the  council  it  was  seriously  proposed 
that,  if  the  enemy  advanced,  the  Tower  should  be  abandoned. 
Great  multitudes  of  people  assembled  in  the  streets  crying  out 
that  England  was  bought  and  sold.  The  houses  and  car- 
riages of  the  ministers  were  attacked  by  *Jie  populace  ;  and  it 
seemed  likely  that  the  government  would  have  to  deal  at  once 
with  an  invasion  and  with  an  insurrection  The  extreme  dan- 
ger, it  is  true,  soon  passed  by.  A  treaty  was  concluded,  very 
different  from  those  which  Oliver  had  Wen  in  the  habit  of 
signing ;  and  the  nation  was  once  more  a*  peace,  but  was  in  a 
mood  scarcely  less  fierce  and  sullen  than  iu  the  days  of  ship- 
money. 

The  discontent  engendered  by  maladministration  was 
heightened  by  calamities  which  the  best  administration  could 
not  have  averted.  While  the  ignominious  wa~  with  Holland 
was  raging,  London  suffered  two  great  disasters,  such  as  never, 
in  so  short  a  space  of  time,  befell  one  city.  A  pestilence, 
surpassing  in  horror  any  that  during  three  centuries  had  vis- 
ited the  island,  swept  away,  in  six  months,  more  than  a  hun- 
dred thousand  human  beings.  And  scarcely  had  th«  dead- 
cart  ceased  to  go  its  rounds,  when  a  fire,  such  as  had  no*-  been 
known  in  Europe  since  the  conflagration  of  Rome  uoder 
Nero,  laid  in  ruins  the  whole  city,  from  the-  Tower  to  the 
Temple,  and  from  the  river  to  the  purlieus  of  Smithfield. 

Had  there  been  a  general  election  while  the  nation  was 
smarting  under  so  many  disgraces  and  misfortunes,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  Roundheads  would  have  regained  ascendency  in 
the  state.  But  the  parliament  was  still  the  Cavalier  parlia- 
ment, chosen  in  the  transport  of  loyalty  which  had  followed 
the  restoration.  Nevertheless  it  soon  became  evident  that  no 
English  legislature,  however  loyal,  would  now  consent  to  be 
merely  what  the  legislature  had  been  under  the  Tudors. 
From  the  death  of  Elizabeth  to  the  eve  of  the  civil  war,  the 
Puritans,  who  predominated  in  the  representative  body*  had 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  151 

been  constantly,  by  a  dexterous  use  of  the  power  of  the  purse, 
encroaching  on  the  province  of  the  executive  government. 
The  gentlemen  who,  after  the  restoration,  filled  the  Lower 
House,  though  they  abhorred  the  Puritan  name,  were  well 
pleased  to  inherit  the  fruits  of  the  Puritan  policy.  They  were 
indeed  most  willing  to  employ  the  power  which  they  possessed 
in  the  state  for  the  purpose  of  making  their  king  mighty  and 
honored,  both  at  home  and  abroad  ;  but  with  the  power  itself 
they  were  resolved  not  to  part.  The  great  English  revolution 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  that  is  to  say,  the  transfer  of  the 
supreme  control  of  the  executive  administration  from  the 
crown  to  the  House  of  Commons,  was,  through  the  whole 
long  existence  of  this  parliament,  proceeding  noiselessly,  but 
rapidly  and  steadily.  Charles,  kept  poor  by  his  follies  and 
vices,  wanted  money.  The  Commons  alone  could  legally 
grant  him  money.  They  could  not  be  prevented  from  put- 
ting their  own  price  on  their  grants.  The  price  which  they 
put  on  their  grants  was  this,  that  they  should  be  allowed  to 
interTere~with  every  one  of  the  king's  prerogatives,  to  wring 
from  him  his  consent  to  laws  which  he  dislikgd»  to  break  up 
cabinets,  to  dictate  the  course  of  foreign  policy,  and  even  to 
direct  the  administration  of  war.  To  the  royal  office,  and 
the"  royal  person,  they  loudly  and  sincerely  professed  the 
strongest  attachment.  But  to  Clarendon  they  owed  no  alle- 
giance  ;  and  they  fell  on  him  as  furiously  as  their  predecessors 
had  fallen  on  Strafford.  The  minister's  virtues  and  vices  alike 
contributed  to  his  ruin.  He  was  the  ostensible  head  of  the 
administration,  and  was  therefore  held  responsible  even  for 
those  acts  which  he  had  strongly  but  vainly  opposed  in  coun- 
cil. He  was  regarded  by  the  Puritans,  and  by  all  who  pitied 
them,  as  an  implacable  bigot,  a  second  Laud,  with  much  more 
than  Laud's  understanding.  He  had  on  all  occasions  main- 
tained that  the  act  of  indemnity  ought  to  be  strictly  observed ; 
and  this  part  of  his  conduct,  though  highly  honorable  to  him, 
made  him  hateful  to  all  those  Royalists  who  wished  to  repair 
their  ruined  fortunes  by  suing  the  Roundheads  for  damages 
and  mesne  profits.  The  Presbyterians  of  Scotland  attributed 
to  him  the  downfall  of  their  church.  The  Papists  of  Ireland 
attributed  to  him  the  loss  of  their  lands.  As  father  of  the 
Duchess  of  York,  he  had  an  obvious  motive  for  wishing  that 
there  might  be  a  barren  quee  i ;  and  he  was  therefore  sus- 
pected of  having  purposely  recommended  one.  The  sale  of 
Dunkirk  was  justly  imputed  to  him.  For  the  war  with  Hoi- 


land  he  was,  with  less  justice,  held  accountable.  His  hot  tem- 
per, his  arrogant  deportment,  the  indelicate  eagerness  with 
which  he  grasped  at  riches,  the  ostentation  with  which  he 
squandered  them,  his  picture  gallery,  filled  with  masterpieces 
of  Vandyke  which  had  once  been  the  property  of  ruined 
Cavaliers,  his  palace,  which  reared  its  long  and  stately  front 
right  opposite  to  the  humbler  residence  of  our  kings,  drew  on 
him  much  deserved,  and  some  undeserved,  censure.  When  the 
Dutch  fleet  was  in  the  Thames,  it  was  against  the  chancellor 
that  the  rage  of  the  populace  was  chiefly  directed.  His 
windows  were  broken,  the  trees  of  his  garden  cut  down,  and 
a  gibbet  set  up  before  his  door.  But  nowhere  was  he  more 
detested  than  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  unable 
to  perceive  that  the  time  was  fast  approaching  when  that 
house,  if  it  continued  to  exist  at  all,  must  be  supreme  in  the 
state,  when  the  management  of  that  house  would  be  the  most 
important  department  of  politics,  and  when,  without  the  help 
of  men  possessing  the  ear  of  that  house,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  carry  on  the  government.  He  obstinately  persisted  in 
considering  the  parliament  as  a  body  in  no  respect  differing 
from  the  parliament  which  had  been  sitting  when,  forty  years 
before,  he  first  began  to  study  law  at  the  Temple.  He  did 
not  wish  to  deprive  the  legislature  of  those  powers  which  were 
inherent  in  it  by  the  old  constitution  of  the  realm ;  but  the 
new  development  of  those  powers,  though  a  development 
natural,  inevitable,  and  to  be  prevented  only  by  utterly  de- 
stroying the  powers  themselves,  disgusted  and  alarmed  him. 
Nothing  would  have  induced  him  to  put  the  great  seal  to  a 
writ  for  raising  ship-money,  or  to  give  his  voice  in  council  for 
committing  a  member  of  parliament  to  the  Tower,  on  account 
of  words  spoken  in  debate ;  but,  when  the  Commons  began 
to  inquire  in  what  manner  the  money  voted  for  the  war  had 
been  wasted,  and  to  examine  into  the  maladministration  of 
Ihe  navy,  he  flamed  with  indignation.  Such  inquiry,  accord- 
ing to  him,  was  out  of  their  province.  He  admitted  that  the 
House  was  a  most  loyal  assembly,  that  it  had  done  good  ser- 
vice to  the  crown,  and  that  its  intentions  were  excellent.  But, 
both  in  public  and  in  the  closet,  he,  on  every  occasion,  ex- 
pressed his  concern  that  gentlemen  so  sincerely  attached  to 
monarchy  should  unadvisedly  encroach  on  the  prerogative  of 
the  monarch.  Widely  as  they  differed  in  spirit  from  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Long  Parliament,  they  yet,  he  said,  imitated  that 
parliament  in  meddling  with  matters  which  lay  beyond  the 


HIS'KRY    OF- ENGLAND.  153 

of  the  Estates  of  the  realm,  and  Which  were  subject  to 
the  authority  of  the  crown  alone.  The  country,  he  main- 
tained, would  never  be  well  governed  till  the  knights  of  shires 
*nd  the  burgesses  were  content  to  be  what  their  predecessors 
had  been  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  All  the  plans  which  men 
more  observant  than  himself  of  the  signs  of  that  time  pro- 
posed, for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  a  good  understanding 
between  the  court  and  the  commons,  he  disdainfully  rejected 
as  crude  projects,  inconsistent  with  the  old  polity  of  England. 
Towards  the  young  orators,  who  were  rising  to  distinction  and 
authority  in  the  Lower  House,  his  deportment  was  ungracious  ; 
und  he  succeeded  in  making  them,  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
his  deadly  enemies.  Indeed  one  of  his  most  serious  faults 
was  an  inordinate  contempt  for  youth  ;  and  this  contempt  was 
the  more  unjustifiable,  because  his  own  experience  in  English 
politics  was  by  no  means  proportioned  to  his  age.  For  so 
great  a  part  of  his  life  had  been  passed  abroad  that  he  knew' 
less  of  the  world  in  which  he  found  himself  on  his.  return 
than  many  who  might  have  been  his  sons. 

For  these  reasons  he  was  disliked  by  the  Commons.  For 
very  different  reasons  he  was  equally  disliked  by  the  court. 
His  morals,  as  well  as  his  politics,  were  those  of  an  earlier 
generation.  Even  when  he  was  a  young  law  student,  living 
much  with  men  of  wit  and  pleasure,  his  natural  gravity  and 
his  religious  principles  had  to  a  great  extent  preserved  him 
from  the  contagion  of  fashionable  debauchery;  and  he  was 
by  no  means  likely,  in  advanced  years  and  in  declining  health, 
to  turn  libertine.  On  the  vices  of  the  young  and  gay  he 
looked  with  an  aversion  almost  as  bitter  and  contemptuous  as 
that  which  he  felt  for  the  theological  errors  of  the  sectaries. 
He  missed  no  opportunity  of  showing  his  scorn  of  the  mimics, 
revellers,  and  courtesans  who  crowded  the  palace ;  and  the 
admonitions  which  he  addressed  to  the  king  himself  were 
very  sharp,  and,  what  Charles  disliked  still  more,  very  long. 
Scarcely  any  voice  was  raised  in  favor  of  a  minister  loaded 
with  the  double  odium  of  faults  which  roused  the  fury  of  the 
people,  and  of  virtues  which  annoyed  and  importuned  the 
sovereign.  Southampton  was  no  more.  Ormond  performed 
the  duties  of  friendship  manfully  and  faithfully,  but  in  vain. 
The  chancellor  fell  with  a  great  ruin.  The  king  took  the 
seal  from  him ;  the  Commons  impeached  him  ;  his  head  was 
not  safe  ;  he  fled  from  the  country ;  an  act  was  passed  which 
doomed  him  to  perpetual  exile ;  and  those  who  had  assailed 

13* 


154  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  undermined  him  began  to  struggle  for  the  fragments  of 
his  power. 

The  sacrifice  of  Clarendon  in  some  degree  took  off  the 
edge  of  the  public  appetite  for  revenge.  Yet  was  the  anger 
excited  by  the  profusion  and  negligence  of  the  government, 
and  by  the  miscarriages  of  the  late  war,  by  no  means  extin- 
guished. The  counsellors  of  Charles,  with  the  fate  of  the 
chancellor  before  their  eyes,  were  anxious  for  their  own 
safety.  They  accordingly  advised  their  master  to  soothe  the 
irritation  which  prevailed  both  in  the  parliament  and  through- 
out the  country,  and,  for  that  end,  to  take  a  step  which  has 
no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  and 
which  was  worthy  of  the  prudence  and  magnanimity  of 
Oliver. 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  at  which  the  history  of  the 
great  English  revolution  begins  to  be  complicated  with  the 
history  of  foreign  politics.  The  powei  of  Spain  had,  during 
many  years,  been  declining.  She  still,  it  is  true,  held  in 
Europe  the  Milanese  and  the  Two  Sicilies,  Belgium,  and 
Franc  he  Comte.  In  America  her  dominions  still  spread,  on 
both  sides  of  the  equator,  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  torrid 
zone.  But  this  great  body  had  been  smitten  with  palsy,  and 
was  not  only  incapable  of  giving  molestation  to  other  states, 
but  could  not,  without  assistance,  repel  aggression.  France, 
was  now,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  greatest  power  in  Europe. 
Hgr—resources  have,  since  those  days,  absolutely  increased, 
but  have  not  increased  so  fast  as  the  resources  of  England. 
It  must  also  be  remembered  that,  a  hundred  and  eighty  years 
ago,  the  empire  of  Russia,  now  a  monarchy  of  the  first  class, 
was  as  entirely  out  of  the  system  of  European  politics,  as 
Abyssinia  or  Siam,  that  the  House  of  Brandenburg  was  then 
hardly  more  powerful  than  the  House  of  Saxony,  and  that  the 
republic  of  the  United  States  had  not  then  begun  to  exist. 
The  weight  of  France,  therefore,  though  still  very  considera- 
ble, has  relatively  diminished.  Her  territory  was  not  in  the 
days  of  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  quite  so  extensive  as  at  present ; 
but  it  was  large,  compact,  fertile,  well  placed  both  for  attack 
and  for  defence,  situated  in  a  happy  climate,  and  inhabited 
by  a  brave,  active,  and  ingenious  people.  The  state  implicitly 
obeyed  the  direction  of  a  single  mind.  The  great  fiefs  which, 
three  hundred  years  before,  had  been,  in  all  but  name,  inde- 
pendent principalities,  had  been  annexed  to  the  crown.  Only 
a  few  old  men  could  remember  the  last  meeting  of  the  States 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  155 

General.  The  resistance  which  the  Huguenots,  the  nobles 
and  the  parliaments  had  offered  to  the  kingly  power,  had  been 
put  down  by  the  two  great  cardinals  who  had  ruled  the  nation 
during  forty  years.  The  government  was  now  a  despotism, 
but,  at  least  in  its  dealings  with  the  upper  classes,  a  mild  and 
generous  despotism,  tempered  by  courteous  manners  and 
chivalrous  sentiments.  The  means  at  the  disposal  of  the  sov- 
ereign were,  for  that  age,  truly  formidable.  His  revenue, 
raised,  it  is  true,  by  a  severe  and  unequal  taxation  which 
pressed  heavily  on  the  cultivators  of  the  soil,  far  exceeded 
that  of  any  other  potentate.  His  army,  excellently  disci- 
plined, and  commanded  by  the  greatest  generals  then  living, 
already  consisted  of  more  than  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
men.  Such  an  array  of  regular  troops  had  not  been  seen  in 
Europe  since  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  *Of  mari- 
time powers  France  was  not  the  first.  But,  though  she  had 
rivals  on  the  sea,  she  had  not  yet  a  superior.  Such  was  her 
strength  during  the  last  forty  years  of  the  seventeenth  centu- 
ry, that  no  enemy  could  singly  withstand  her,  and  that  two 
great  coalitions,  in  which  half  Christendom  was  united  against 
her,  failed  of  success. 

The  personal  qualities  of  the  French  king  added  to  the  re- 
spect inspired  by  the  power  and  importance  of  his  kingdom. 
No  sovereign  has  ever  represented  the  majesty  of  a  great 
state  with  more  dignity  and  grace.  He  was  his  own  prime 
minister,  and  performed  the  duties  of  that  arduous  situation 
with  an  ability  and  an  industry  which  could  not  be  reasonably 
expected  from  one  who  had  in  infancy  succeeded  to  a  crown, 
and  who  had  been  surrounded  by  flatterers  before  he  could 
speak.  He  had  shown,  in  an  eminent  degree,  two  talents  in- 
valuable to  a  prince,  the  talent  of  choosing  his  servants  well, 
and  the  talent  of  appropriating  to  himself  the  chief  part  of  the 
credit  of  their  acts.  In  his  dealings  with  foreign  powers  he 
had  some  generosity,  but  no  justice.  To  unhappy  allies  who 
threw  themselves  at  his  feet,  and  had  no  hope  but  in  his  com- 
passion, he  extended  his  protection  with  a  romantic  disinter- 
estedness, which  seemed  better  suited  to  a  knight  errant  than  to  a 
statesman.  But  he  broke  through  the  most  sacred  ties  of  public 
faith  without  scruple  or  shame,  whenever  they  interfered  with 
his  interest,  or  with  what  he  called  his  glory.  His  perfidy  and 
violence,  however,  excited  less  enmity  than  the  insolence  with 
which  ho  constantly  reminded  his  neighbors  of  his  own  great- 
ness and  of  their  littleness.  He  did  not  at  this  time  profess 


156  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  austere  devotion  whicfy,  at  a  later  period,  gave  to  his  court 
the  aspect  of  a  monastery.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  as  licen- 
tious, though  by  no  means  as  frivolous  and  indolent,  as  his 
brother  of  England.  But  he  was  a  sincere  Roman  Catholic  , 
and  both  his  conscience  and  his  vanity  impelled  him  to  use 
his  power  for  the  defence  and  propagation  of  the  true  faith, 
after  the  example  of  his  renowned  predecessors,  Clovis,  Char- 
lemagne, and  Saint  Lewis. 

Our  ancestors  naturally  looked  with  serious  alarm  on  the 
growing  "power  of  France.  This  feeling,  in  itself  perfectly 
reasonable,  was  mingled  with  other  feelings  less  praiseworthy. 
France  was  our  old  enemy.  It  was  against  France  that  the 
most  glorious  battles  recorded  in  our  annals  had  been  fought. 
The  conquest  of  France  had  been  twice  effected  by  the 
Plantagenots.  The  loss  of  France  had  been  long  remembered 
as  a  great  national  disaster.  The  title  of  King  of  France  was 
still  borne  by  our  sovereigns.  The  lilies  of  France  still  ap- 
peared, mingled  with  our  own  lions,  on  the  shield  of  the  House 
of  Stuart.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  dread  inspired  by 
Spain  had  suspended  the  animosity  of  which  France  had  an- 
ciently been  the  object.  But  the  dread  inspired  by  Spain  had 
given  place  to  contemptuous  compassion ;  and  France  was 
again  regarded  as  our  national  foe.  The  sale  of  Dunkirk  to 
France  had  been  the  most  generally  unpopular  act  of  the  re- 
stored king.  Attachment  to  France  had  been  prominent  among 
the  crimes  imputed  by  the  Commons  to  Clarendon.  Even  inr 
trifles  the  public  feeling  showed  itself.  When  a  brawl  took 
place  in  the  streets  of  Westminster  between  the  retinues  of  the 
French  and  Spanish  embassies,  the  populace,  though  forcibly 
prevented  from  interfering,  had  given  unequivocal  proofs  that 
the  old  antipathy  was  not  extinct. 

France  and  Spain  were  now  engaged  in  a  more  serious  con- 
test. One  of  the  chief  objects  of  the  policy  of  Lewis  through- 
out his  life  was  to  extend  his  dominions  towards  the  Rhine. 
For  this  end  he  had  engaged  in  war  with  Spain,  and  he  was 
now  in  the  full  career  of  conquest.  The  United  Provinces 
saw  with  anxiety  the  progress  of  his  arms.  That  renowned 
federation  had  reached  the  height  of  power,  prosperity,  and 
glory.  The  Batavian  territory,  conquered  from  the  waves, 
and  defended  against  them  by  human  art,  was  in  extent  little 
superior  to  the  principality  of  Wales.  But  all  that  narrow  space 
was  a  busy  and  populous  hive,  in  which  new  wealth  was  every 
day  created,  and  in  which  vast  masses  of  old  wealth  were 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  157 

hoarded.  The  aspect  of  Holland,  the  rich  cultivation,  the 
innumerable  canals,  the  ever-whirling  mills,  the  endless  fleets 
of  barges,  the  quick  succession  of  great  towns,  the  ports 
bristling  with  thousands  of  masts,  the  large  and  stately  man- 
sions, the  trim  villas,  the  richly-furnished  apartments,  the  pic- 
ture galleries,  the  summer  houses,  the  tulip  beds,  produced  on 
English  travellers  in  that  age  an  effect  similar  to  the  effect 
which  the  first  sight  of  England  ndw  produces  on  a  Norwe- 
gian or  a  Canadian.  The  States  General  had  been  Compelled 
to  humble  themselves  before  Cromwell.  But  after  the  Res- 
toration they  had  taken  their  revenge,  had  waged  war  with 
success  against  Charles,  and  had  concluded  peace  on  honor- 
able terms.  Rich,  however,  as  the  republic  was,  and  highly 
Considered  in  Europe,  she  was  no  match  for  the  power  of 
Lewis.  She  apprehended,  not  without  good  cause,  that  his 
kingdom  might  soon  be  extended  to  her  frontiers ;  and  she 
might  well  dread  the  immediate  vicinity  of  a  monarch  so 
great,  so  ambitious,  and  so  unscrupulous.  Tet  it  was  not  easy 
to  devise  any  expedient  which  might  avert  the  danger.  The 
Dutch  alone  could  not  turn  the  scale  against  France.  On  the 
side  of  the  Rhine  no  help  was  to  be  expected.  Several  Ger- 
man princes  had  been  gained  by  Lewis ;  and  the  emperor 
himself  was  embarrassed  by  the  discontents  of  Hungary. 
England  was  separated  from  the  United  Provinces  by  the 
recollection  of  cruel  injuries  recently  inflicted-  and  endured ; 
and  her  policy  had,  since  the  Restoration,  been  so  devoid  of 
wisdom  and  spirit,  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  expect  from 
her  any  valuable  assistance. 

But  the  fate  of  Clarendon  and  the  growing  ill  humor  of  the 
parliament  determined,  the  advisers  of  Charles  to  adopt  on  a 
sudden  a  policy  which  amazed  and  delighted  the  nation. 

The  English  resident  at  Brussels,  Sir  William  Temple,  one 
of  the  most  expert  diplomatists  and  most  pleasing  writers  of 
that  age,  had  already  represented  to  his  court  that  it  was  both 
desirable  and  practicable  to  enter  into  engagements  with  the 
States  General  for  the  purpose  of  checking  the  progress  of 
France.  For  a  time  his  suggestions  had  been  slighted  ;  but  i; 
was  now  thought  expedient  to  act  on  them.  He  was  commis- 
sioned to  negotiate  with  the  States  General.  He  proceeded  to 
the  Hague,  and  soon  came  to  an  understanding  with  John  De 
Witt,  then  the  chief  minister  of  Holland.  Sweden,  small  aa 
her  resources  were,  had,  forty  years  before,  been  raised  oy 
ihe  genius  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  to  a  high  rank  among  Euro- 
VOL.  i.  14 


158  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

pean  powers,  and  Had  not  yet  descended  to  her  natural  position. 
She  was  induced  to  join  on  this  occasion  with  England  and 
the  States.  Thus  was  formed  that  coalition  known  as  the 
Triple  Alliance.  Lewis  showed  signs  of  vexation  and  resent- 
ment, but  did  not  think  it  politic  to  draw  on  himself  the  hos- 
tility of  such  a  confederacy  in  addition  to  that  of  Spain.  He 
consented,  therefore,  to  relinquish  a  large  part  of  the  territory 
which  his  armies  had  occupied.  Peace  was  restored  to  Eu- 
rope ;  and  the  English  government,  lately  an  object  of  gen- 
eral contempt,  was,  during  a  few  months,  regarded  by  foreign 
powers  with  respect  scarcely  less  than  that  which  the  Pro- 
tector had  inspired. 

At  home  the  Triple  Alliance  was  popular  in  the  highest 
degree.  It  gratified  alike  national  animosity  and  national 
pride.  It  put  a  limit  to  the  encroachments  of  a  powerful  and 
ambitious  neighbor.  It  bound  the  leading  Protestant  states 
together  in  close  union.  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads  rejoiced 
in  common ;  but  the  joy  of  the  Roundhead  was  even  greater 
than  that  of  the  Cavalier.  For  England  had  now  allied  her- 
self strictly  with  a  country  republican  in  government  and 
Presbyterian  in  religion,  against  a  country  ruled  by  an  arbi- 
trary prince  and  attached  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
The  House  of  Commons  loudly  applauded  the  treaty ;  and 
some  uncourtly  grumblers  described  it  as  the  only  good  thing 
that  had  been  done  since  the  king  came  in. 

The  king,  however,  cared  little  for  the  approbation  of  his 
parliament  or  of  his  people.  The  Triple  Alliance  he  regarded 
merely  as  a  temporary  expedient  for  quieting  discontents 
which  had  seemed  likely  to  become  serious.  The  independ- 
ence, the  safety,  the  dignity,  of  the  nation  over  which  he 
presided  were  nothing  to  him.  He  had  begun  to  find  consti- 
tutional restraints  galling.  Already  had  been  formed  in  the 
parliament  a  strong  connection  known  by  the  name  of  the 
country  party.  That  party  included  all  the  public  men  who 
leaned  towards  Puritanism  and  Republicanism,  and  many  who, 
though  attached  to  the  Established  Church  and  to  hereditary 
monarchy,  had  been  driven  into  opposition  by  dread  of  Po- 
pery, by  dread  of  France,  and  by  disgust  at  the  extravagance 
dissoluteness,  and  faithlessness  of  the  court.  The  power  of 
this  band  of  politicians  was  constantly  growing.  Every  year 
some  of  those  members  who  had  been  returned  to  parliament 
during  the  loyal  excitement  of  1661  dropped  off;  and  the 
vacant  seats  were  generally  filled  by  persons  less  tractable. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  159 

Charles  did  not  think  himself  a  king  while  an  assembly  of 
subjects  could  call  for  his  accounts  before  paying  his  debts, 
and  coujd  insist  on  knowing  which  of  his  mistresses  or  boon 
companions  had  intercepted  the  money  destined  for  the  equip- 
ping and  manning  of  the  fleet.  Though  not  very  studious  of 
fame,  he  was  galled  by  the  taunts  which  were  sometimes 
uttered  in  the  discussions  of  the  Commons,  and  on  one  occa- 
sion attempted  to  restrain  the  freedom  of  speech  by  disgrace- 
ful means.  Sir  John  Coventry,  a  country  gentleman,  had,  in 
debate,  sneered  at  the  profligacy  of  the  cour'  In  any  former 
reign  he  would  probably  have  been  called  jfore  the  Privy 
Council  and  committed  to  the  Tower.  A  d  -/orent  course  was 
now  taken.  A  gang  of  bullies  was  secretly  sent  to  slit  the 
nose  of  the  offender.  This  ignoble  revenge,  instead  of  quell- 
ing the  spirit  of  opposition,  raised  such  t.  tempest,  that  the 
king  was  compelled  to  submit  to  the  cruel  humiliation  of  pass- 
ing an  act  which  attainted  the  instruments  of  his  revenge,  and 
which  took  from  him  the  power  of  pardoning  them. 

But,  impatient  as  he  was  of  constitutional  restraints,  how 
was  he  to  emancipate  himself  from  them  ?  He  could  make 
himself  despotic  only  by  the  help  of  a  great  standing  army ; 
and  such  an  army  was  not  in  existence.  His  revenues  did 
indeed  enable  him  to  keep  up  some  regular  troops ;  but  these 
troops,  though  numerous  enough  to  excite  great  jealousy  and 
apprehension  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  in  the  countiy, 
were  scarcely  numerous  enough  to  protect' Whitehall  and  the 
Tower  against  a  rising  of  the  mob  of  London.  Such  risings 
were,  indeed,  to  be  dreaded  ;  for  it  was  calculated  that  in  the 
capital  and  its  suburbs  dwelt  not  less  than  twenty  thousand  of 
Oliver's  old  soldiers. 

Since  the  king  was  bent  on  emancipating  himself  from  the 
control  of  parliament,  and  since,  in  such  an  enterprise,  he 
could  not  hope  for  effectual  aid  at  home,  it  followed  that  he 
must  look  for  aid  abroad.  The  power  and  wealth  of  the 
King  of  France  might  be  equal  to  the  arduous  task  of  estab- 
lishing absolute  monarchy  in  England.  Such  an  ally  would 
undoubtedly  expect  substantial  proofs  of  gratitude  for  such  a 
service.  Charles  must  descend  to  the  rank  of  a  great  vassal, 
and  must  make  peace  and  war  according  to  the  directions  of 
the  government  which  protected  him.  His  relation  to  Lewis 
would  closely  resemble  that  in  which  the  Rajah  of  Nagpore 
and  the  King  of  Oude  now  stand  to  the  British  government. 
Those  princes  are  bound  to  aid  the  East  India  Company  in  all 


160  BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

hostilities,  defensive  and  offensive,  and  to  have  no  diplomatic 
relations  but  such  as  the  East  India  Company  shall  sanction. 
The  Company,  in  return,  guaranties  them  against  insurrection. 
As  long  as  they  faithfully  discharge  their  obligations  to  the 
paramount  power,  they  are  permitted  to  dispose  of  large  rev- 
enues, to  fill  their  palaces  with  beautiful  women,  to  besot 
themselves  in  the  company  of  their  favorite  revellers,  and  to 
oppress  with  impunity  any  subject  who  may  incur  their  dis- 
pleasure. Such  a  life  would  be  insupportable  to  a  man  of 
high  spirit  and  of  powerful  understanding.  But  to  Charles, 
sensual,  indolent,  unequal  to  any  strong  intellectual  exertion, 
and  destitute  alike  of  all  patriotism  and  of  all  sense  of  personal 
dignity,  the  prospect  had  nothing  unpleasing. 

That  the  Duke  of  York  should  have  concurred  in  the  design 
of  degrading  that  crown  which  it  was  probable  that  he  would 
himself  one  day  wear,  may  seem  more  extraordinary.  For 
his  nature  was  haughty  and  imperious ;  and,  indeed,  he  con- 
tinued to  the  very  last  to  show,  by  occasional  starts  and  strug- 
gles, his  impatience  of  the  French  yoke.  But  he  was  almost 
as  much  debased  by  superstition  as  his  brother  by  indolence 
and  vice.  James  was  now  a  Roman  Catholic.  Religious  big- 
otry had  become  the  dominant  sentiment  of  his  narrow  and 
stubborn  mind,  and  had  so  mingled  itself  with  his  love  of  rule 
that  the  two  passions  could  hardly  be  distinguished  from  each 
other.  It  seemed  highly  improbable  that,  without  foreign  aid, 
he  would  obtain  ascendency  or  even  toleration  for  his  own 
faith  ;  and  he  was  in  a  temper  to  see ,  nothing  humiliating  in 
any  step,  however  unprincely  or  unmanly,  which  might  pro- 
mote the  interests  of  the  true  church. 

A  negotiation  was  opened  which  lasted  during  several 
months.  The  chief  agent  between  the  English  and  French 
courts  was  the  beautiful,  graceful,  and  intelligent  Henrietta, 
Duchess  of  Orleans,  sister  of  Charles,  sister-in-law  of  Lewis, 
and  a  favorite  with  both.  The  king  of  England  offered  to 
declare  himself  a  Roman  Catholic,  to  dissolve  the  Triple 
Alliance,  and  to  join  with  France  against  Holland,  if  France 
would  engage  to  lend  him  such  military  and  pecuniary  aid  as 
might  make  him  independent  of  his  parliament.  Lewis  at  first 
affected  to  receive  these  propositions  coolly,  and  at  length 
agreed  to  them  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  is  conferring  a 
great  favor ;  but,  in  truth,  the  course  which  he  had  resolved  to 
take  was  one  by  which  he  might  gain  and  could  not  lose. 

It  seems  certain  that  he  never  seriously  thought  of  estab- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  161 

lishing  despotism  and  Popery  in  England  by  force  of  arms. 
He  must  have  been  aware  that  such  an  enterprise  would  be  in 
the  highest  degree  arduous  and  hazardous,  that  it  would  task 
to  the  utmost  all  the  energies  of  France  during  many  years, 
and  that  it  would  be  altogether  incompatible  with  more  prom- 
ising schemes  of  aggrandizement,  which  were  dear  to  his 
heart.  He  would  indeed  willingly  have  acquired  the  merit  and 
the  glory  of  doing  a  great  service  on  reasonable  terms  to  the 
church  of  which  he  was  a  member.  But  he  was  little  disposed 
to  imitate  his  ancestors  who,  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies, had  led  the  flower  of  French  chivalry  to  die  in  Syria 
and  Egypt ;  and  he  well  knew  that  a  crusade  against  Protes- 
tantism in  Great  Britain  would  not  be  less  perilous  than  the 
expeditions  in  which  the  armies  of  Lewis*  the  Seventh  and  of 
Lewis  the  Ninth  had  perished.  He  had  no  motive  for  wishing 
the  Stuarts  to  be  absolute.  He  did  not  regard  the  English 
constitution  with  feelings  at  all  resembling  those  which  have 
in  later  times  induced  princes  to  make  war  on  the  free  institu- 
tions of  neighboring  nations.  At  present  a  great  party,  zeal- 
ous for  popular  government,  has  ramifications  in  every  civil- 
ized country.  Any  important  advantage  gained  any  where 
by  that  party  is  almost  certain  to  be  the  signal  for  general 
commotion.  It  is  not  wonderful  that  governments  threatened 
by  a  common  danger  should  combine  for  the  purpose  of 
mutual  insurance.  But  in  the  seventeenth  century  no  such 
danger  existed.  Between  the  public  mind  of  England  and 
the  public  mind  of  France,  there  was  a  great  gulf.  Our  in- 
stitutions and  our  factions  were  as  little  understood  at  Paris  as 
at  Constantinople.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  one  of 
the  forty  members  of  the  French  Academy  had  an  English 
volume  in  his  library,  or  knew  Shakspeare,  Jonson,  or  Butler, 
even  by  name.  A  few  Huguenots,  who  had  inherited  the 
mutinous  spirit  of  their  ancestors,  might  perhaps  have  a  fellow- 
feeling  with  their  brethren  in  the  faith,  the  English  Round- 
heads ;  but  the  Huguenots  had  ceased  to  be  formidable.  The 
French,  as  a  body,  attached  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  and 
proud  of  the  greatness  of  their  king  and  of  their  own  loyalty 
locked  on  our  struggles  against  Popery  and  arbitrary  power, 
not  only  without  admiration  or  sympathy,  but  with  strong  dis- 
approbation and  disgust.  It  would  therefore  be  a  great  error 
to  ascribe  the  conduct  of  Lewis  to  apprehensions  at  all  resem- 
bling those  which,  in  our  age,  induced  the  Holy  Alliance  to 
interfere  in  the  internal  government  of  Naples  and  Spain. 
14* 


162  HISTCRT    OF    ENGLAND. 

Nevertheless,  the  propositions  made  by  the  court  of  White- 
nail  were  most  welcome  to  him.  He  already  meditated 
gigantic^designs,  which  were  destined  to  keep  Europe  in  con 
slant  fermentation  during  more  than  forty  years.  He  wished 
to  humble  the  United  Provinces,  and  to  annex  Belgium, 
Franche  Comte,  and  Loraine  to  his  dominions.  Nor  was  this 
all.  The  King  of  Spain  was  a  sickly  chjld.  It  was  likely 
that  he  would  die  without  issue.  His  eldest  sister  was  Queen 
of  France.  A  day  would  almost  certainly  come,  and  might 
come  very  soon,  when  the  House  of  Bourbon  might  lay  claim 
to  that  vast  empire  on  which  the  sun  never  set.  The  union 
of  two  great  monarchies  under  one  head  would  doubtless  be 
opposed  by  a  continental  coalition.  But  for  any  continental 
coalition  France  single-handed  was  a  match.  England  could 
turn  the  scale.  On  the  course  which,  in  such  a  crisis,  England 
might  pursue,  the  destinies  of  the  world  would  depend ;  and  it 
was  notorious  that  the  English  parliament  and  nation  were 
strongly  attached  to  the  policy  which  had  dictated  the  Triple 
Alliance.  Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  more  gratifying  to 
Lewis  than  to  learn  that  the  princes  of  the  House  of  Stuart 
needed  his  help,  and  were  willing  to  purchase  that  help  by 
unbounded  subserviency.  He  determined  to  profit  by  the  op- 
portunity, and  laid  down  for  himself  a  plan  to  which,  without 
deviation,  he  adhered,  till  the  revolution  of  1688  disconcerted 
all  his  politics.  He  professed  himself  desirous  to  promote  the 
designs  of  the  English  court.  He  promised  large  aid.  He 
from  time  to  time  doled  out  such  aid  as  might  serve  to  keep 
hope  alive,  and  as  he  could  without  risk  or  inconvenience 
spare.  In  this  way,  at  an  expense  very  much  less  than  that 
which  he  incurred  in  building  and  decorating  Versailles  or 
Marli,  he  succeeded  in  making  England,  during  nearly  twenty 
years,  almost  as  insignificant  a  member  of  the  political  system 
of  Europe  as  the  republic  of  San  Marino. 

His  object  was  not  to  destroy  our  constitution,  but  to  keep 
the  various  elements  of  which  it  was  composed  in  a  perpetual 
state  of  conflict,  and  to  set  irreconcilable  enmity  between  those 
who  had  the  power  of  the  purse  and  those  who  had  the  power 
of  the  sword.  With  this  view  he  bribed  and  stimulated  both 
parties  in  turn,  pensioned  at  once  the  ministers  of  the  crown 
and  the  chiefs  of  the  opposition,  encouraged  the  court  to  with- 
stand the  seditious  encroachments  of  the  parliament,  and  con- 
veyed to  the  parliament  intimations  of  the  arbitrary  designs  of 
the  court. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  163 

One  of  the  devices' to  whbh  he  resorted  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  an  ascendency  in  the  English  counsels  deserves 
especial  notice.  Charles,  though  incapable  of  love  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word,  was  the  slave  of  any  woman  whose 
person  excited  his  desires,  and  whose  airs  and  prattle  amused 
his  leisure.  Indeed,  a  husband  would  be  justly  derided  who 
should  bear  from  a  wife  of  exalted  rank  and  spotless  virtue 
one  half  of  what  the  King  of  England  bore  from  concubines 
who,  while  they  owed  every  thing  to  his  bounty,  caressed  his 
courtiers  almost  before  his  face.  He  had  patiently  endured 
the  termagant  passions  of  Barbara  Palmer  and  the  pert  vivacity 
of  Eleanor  Gwynn.  Lewis  thought  that  the  most  useful  envoy 
who  could  be  sent  to  London,  would  be  a  handsome,  licentious, 
and  crafty  Frenchwoman.  Such  a  woman  was  Louisa,  a  lady 
of  the  House  of  Querouaille,  whom  our  rude  ancestors  called 
Madam  Carwell.  She  was  soon  triumphant  over  all  her  rivals, 
was  created  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  was  loaded  with  wealth, 
and  obtained  a  dominion  which  ended  only  with  the  life  of 
Charles. 

The  most  important  conditions  of  the  alliance  between  the 
crowns  were  digested  into  a  secret  treaty  which  was  signed  at 
Dover  in  May,  1670,  just  ten  years  after  the  day  on  which 
Charles  had  landed  at  that  very  port  amidst  the  acclamations 
and  joyful  tears  of  a  too  confiding  people. 

By  this  treaty  Charles  bound  himself  to  make  pujbh'c_.pio- 

fession  of  the  Roman  Catholic,  religion,  to!jg]iLjblg_giingJLo 

those  of  Lewis  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  power  of  the 
United  Provinces,  and  to  employ  the  whole  strength  of  Eng- 
land, by  land  and  sea,  in  support  of  the  rights  of  the  House 
of  Bourbon  to  the  vast  monarchy  of  Spain.  Lewis,  on  the 
other  hand,  engaged  lu  pay  a  large i  subsidy,  and  promised 
that,  if  arrjr  insurrection  "should  "BFeak  out  in__England,  he 
would  send  an  army  gffeis  owfTCfaarge" 'teTsupport  his  ally. 

This  compact  was  made  with  gloomy  auspices.  Six  weeks 
after  it  had  been  signed  and  sealed,  the  charming  princess, 
whose  influence  over  her  brother  and  brother-in-law  had  been 
so  pernicious  to  her  country,  was  no  more.  Her  death  gave 
rise  to  horrible  suspicions  which,  for  a  moment,  seemed  likely 
to  interrupt  the  newly-fc-med  friendship  between  the  Houses 
of  Stuart  and  Bourbon :  but  in  a  short  time  fresh  assurances 
of  undiminished  good  wal  were  exchanged  between  the  con- 
federates. 

The  Duke  of  York,  too  dull  to  apprehend  danger,  or  too 


164  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

fanatical  to  care  about  it,  was  impatient  to  see  the  article 
touching  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  carried  into  immediate 
execution :  but  Lewis  had  the  wisdom  to  perceive  that,  if  thia 
course  were  taken,  there  would  be  such  an  explosion  in  Eng- 
land as  would  probably  frustrate  those  parts  of  the  plan  which 
he  had  most  at  heart.  It  was  therefore  determined  that 
Charles  should  still  call  himself  a  Protestant,  and  should  still, 
at  high  festivals,  receive  the  sacrament  according  to  the  ritual 
of  the  Church  of  England.  His  more  scrupulous  brother 
ceased  to  appear  in  the  royal  chapel. 

About  this  time  died  the  Duchess  of  York,  daughter  of  the 
banished  Earl  of  Clarendon.  She  had  been,  during  some 
years,  a  concealed  Roman  Catholic.  She  left  two  daughters, 
Mary  and  Anne,  afterwards  successively  queens  of  Great 
Britain.  They  were  bred  Protestants  by  the  positive  com- 
mand of  the  king,  who  knew  that  it  would  be  vain  for  him 
to  profess  himself  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England,  if 
children  who  seemed  likely  to  inherit  his  crown  were,  by  his 
permission,  brought  up  as  members  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

The  principal  servants  of  the  crown  at  this  time  were  men 
whose  names  have  justly  acquired  an  unenviable  notoriety. 
We  must  take  heed,  however,  that  we  do  not  load  their  mem- 
ory with  infamy  which  of  right -belongs  to  their  master.  For 
the  treaty  of  Dover  the  king  himself  is  chiefly  answerable. 
He  held  conferences  on  it  with  the  French  agents  :  he  wrote 
many  letters  concerning  it  with  his  own  hand :  he  was  the 
person  who  first  suggested  the  most  disgraceful  articles  which 
it  contained ;  and  he  carefully  concealed  some  of  those  arti- 
cles from  the  majority  of  his  cabinet,  or,  as  it  was  popularly 
called,  his  cabal. 

Few  things  in  our  history  are  more  curious  than  the  origin 
and  growth  of  the  power  now  possessed  by  the  cabinet. 
From  an  early  period  the  kings  of  England  had  been  assisted 
by  a  privy  council  to  which  the  law  assigned  many  important 
functions  and  duties.  During  several  centuries  this  body 
deliberated  on  the  gravest  and  most  delicate  affairs  of  state. 
But  by  degrees  its  chaiacter  changed.  It  became  too  large 
for  despatch  and  secrecy.  The  rank  of  privy  councillor  was 
often  bestowed  as  an  honorary  distinction  on  persons  to  whom 
nothing  was  confided,  and  whose  opinion  was  never  asked. 
The  sovereign,  on  the  most  important  occasions,  resorted  for 
advice  to  a  small  knot  of  leading  ministers.  The  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  this  course  were  early  pointed  out  by 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Bacon,  with  his  usual  judgment  and  sagacity  ;  but  it  was  not 
till  after  the  Restoration  that  the  interior  council  began  to 
attract  general  notice.  During  many  years  old-fashioned 
politicians  continued  to  regard  the  cabinet  as  an  unconstitu- 
tional and  dangerous  board.  Nevertheless,  it  constantly 
became  more  and  more  important.  It  at  length  drew  to  itself 
the  chief  executive  power,  and  has  now  been  regarded, 
during  several  generations,  as  an  essential  part  of  our  polity. 
Yet,  strange  to  say,  it  still  continues  to  be  altogether  unknown 
to  the  law.  The  names  of  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  who 
compose  it  are  never  officially  announced  to  the  public.  No 
record  is  kept  of  its  meetings  and  resolutions ;  nor  has  its 
existence  ever  been  recognized  by  any  act  of  parliament. 

It  happened  by  a  whimsical  coincidence  that,  in  1671,  the 
cabinet  consisted  of  five  persons  the  initial  letters  of  whose 
names  made  up  the  word  Cabal — Clifford,  Arlington,  Bucking- 
ham, Ashley,  and  Lauderdale. 

Sir  Thomas  Clifford  was  a  Commissioner  of  the  Treasury, 
and  had  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Of  the  members  of  the  Cabal  he  was  the  most 
respectable.  For,  with  a  fiery  and  imperious  temper,  he  had 
a  strong  though  a  lamentably  perverted  sense  of  duty  and 
honor. 

Henry  Bennet,  Lord  Arlington,  then  secretary  of  state, 
had,  since  he  came  to  manhood,  resided  principally  on  the 
Continent,  and  had  learned  that  cosmopolitan  indifference  to 
constitutions  and  religions  which  is  often  observable  in  persons 
whqse  life  has  been  passed  in  vagrant  diplomacy.  If  there 
was  any  form  of  government  which  he  liked,  it  was  that  of 
France.  If  there  was  any  church  for  which  he  felt  a  prefer- 
ence, it  was  that  of  Rome.  He  had  some  talent  for  con- 
versation, and  some  talent  also  for  transacting  the  ordinary 
business  of  office.  He  had  learned,  during  a  life  passed  in 
travelling  and  negotiating,  the  art  of  accommodating  his 
langdage  and  deportment  to  the  society  in  which  he  found 
himself.  His  vivacity  in  the  closet  amused  the  king ;  his 
gravity  in  debates  and  conferences  imposed  on  the  public ; 
and  he  had  succeeded  in  atteching  to  himself,  partly  by 
services  and  partly  by  hopes,  a  considerable  number  of  per- 
sonal retainers. 

Buckingham,  Ashley,  and  Lauderdale  were  men  in  whom 
the  immorality  which  was  epidemic  among  the  politicians 
of  that  age  appeared  in  its  most  ma  ignant  type,  but  variously 


166  H1STCRY    OF    ENGLAND. 

modified  by  great  diversities  of  temper  and  understanding 
Buckingham  was  a  sated  man  of  pleasure,  who  had  turned  to 
ambition  as  to  a  pastime.  As  he  had  tried  to  amuse  himself 
with  architecture  and  music,  with  writing  farces,  and  with 
seeking  for  the  philosopher's  stone,  so  he  now  tried  to  amuse 
himself  with  a  secret  negotiation  and  a  Dutch  war.  He  had 
already,  rather  from  fickleness  and  love  of  novelty  than  from 
any  deep  design,  been  faithless  to  every  party.  At  one 
time  he  had  ranked  among  the  Cavaliers.  At  another  time 
warrants  had  been  out  against  him  for  maintaining  a  treason- 
able correspondence  with  the  remains  of  the  republican  party 
in  the  city.  He  was  now  again  a  courtier,  and  was  eager  to 
win  the  favor  of  the  king  by  services  front  which  the  most 
illustrious  of  those  who  had  fought  and  suffered  for  the  royal 
house  would  have  recoiled  with  horror. 

Ashley,  with  a  far  stronger  head,  and  with  a  far  fiercer 
and  more  earnest  ambition,  had  been  equally  versatile.  But 
Ashley's  versatility  was  the  effect,  not  of  levity,  but  of  de- 
liberate selfishness.  He  had  served  and  betrayed  a  succession 
of  governments.  But  he  had  timed  all  his  treacheries  so  well 
that,  through  all  revolutions,  his  fortunes  had  constantly  been 
rising.  The  multitude,  struck  with  admiration  by  a  prosper- 
ity which,  while  every  thing  else  was  constantly  changing, 
remained  unchangeable,  attributed  to  him  a  prescience  almost 
miraculous,  and  likened  him  to  the  Hebrew  statesman  of 
whom  it  is  written  that  his  counsel  was  as  if  a  man  had 
inquired  of  the  oracle  of  God. 

Lauderdale,  loud  and  coarse  both  in  mirth  and  anger,  was 
perhaps,  under  the  outward  show  of  boisterous  frankness,  the 
most  dishonest  man  in  the  whole  cabal.  He  had  been  con- 
spicuous among  the  Scotch  iusurgents  of  1638,  and  zealous 
for  the  covenant  He  was  accused  of  having  been  deeply 
concerned  in  the  sale  of  Charles  the  First  to  the  English 
parliament,  and  was  therefore,  in  the  estimation  of  good 
Cavaliers,  a  traitor,  if  possible  of  a  worse  description  tha» 
those  who  had  sate  in  the  High  Court  of  Justice.  He  ofte* 
talked  with  noisy  jocularity  of  the  days  when  he  was  a  cantei 
and  a  rebel.  He  was  now  the  chief  instrument  employed  by 
the  court  in  the  work  of  forcing  episcopacy  on  his  reluctant 
countrymen  ;  nor  did  he  in  that  cause  shrink  from  the  unspar* 
ing  use  of  the  sword,  the  halter,  and  the  boot.  Yet  those 
who  knew  him  knew  that  thirty  years  had  made  no  change  in 
his  real  sentiments,  that  he  still  hated  the  memory  of  Charle* 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  167 

the  First,  and  that  he  still  preferred  the  Presbyterian  form  of 
church  government  to  every  other. 

Unscrupulous  as  Buckingham,  Ashley,  and  Lauderdale 
were,  it  was  not  thought  safe  to  intrust  to  them  the  king's 
intention  of  declaring  himself  a  Roman  Catholic.  A  false 
treaty,  in  which  the  article  concerning  religion  was  omitted, 
was  shown  to  them.  The  names  and  seals  of  Clifford  and 
Arlington  are  affixed  to  the  genuine  treaty.  Both  these 
statesmen  had  a  partiality  for  the  old  church,  a  partiality 
which  the  brave  and  vehement  Clifford  in  no  long  time  man- 
fully avowed,  but  which  the  colder  and  meaner  Arlington 
concealed,  till  the  near  approach  of  death  scared  him  into 
sincerity.  The  three  other  cabinet  ministers,  however,  were 
not  men  to  be  easily  kept  in  the  dark,  and  probably  suspected 
more  than  was  distinctly  avowed  to  them.  They  were 
certainly  privy  to  all  the  political  engagements  contracted 
with  France,  and  were  not  ashamed  to  receive  large  gratifica- 
tions from  Lewis. 

The  first  object  of  Charles  was  to  obtain  from  the  Commons 
supplies  which  might  be  employed  in  executing  the  secret 
treaty.  The  Cabal,  holding  power  at  a  time  when  our  govern- 
ment was  in  a  state  of  transition,  united  in  itself  two  different 
kino's  of  vices  belonging  to  two  different  ages  and  to  two  differ- 
ent systems.  As  those  five  evil  counsellors  were  among  the 
last  English  statesmen  who  seriously  thought  of  destroying  the 
parliament,  so  they  were  the  first  English  statesmen  who  at- 
tempted extensively  to  corrupt  it.  We  find  in  their  policy  at 
once  the  latest  trace  of  the  Thorough  of  Strafford,  and  the 
earliest  trace  of  that  methodical  bribery  which  was  afterwards 
practised  by  Walpole.  They  soon  perceived,  however,  that, 
though  the  House  of  Commons  was  chiefly  composed  of  Cav- 
aliers, and  though  places  and  French  gold  had  been  lavished 
on  the  members,  there  was  no  chance  that  even  the  least  odious 
parts  of  the  scheme  arranged  at  Dover  would  be  supported  by 
a  majority.  It  was  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  fraud.  The 
king  accordingly  professed  great  zeal  for  the  principles  of  the 
Triple  Alliance,  and  pretended  that,  in  order  to  hold  the  ambi- 
tion of  France  in  check,  it  would  be  necessary  to  augment 
the  fleet.  The  Commons  fell  into  the  snare,  and  voted  a  grant 
of  eight  hundred  thousand  pounds.  The  parliament  was 
instantly  prorogued;  and  the  court,  thus  emancipated  from 
control,  proceeded  to  the  execution  of  the  great  design. 

The  financial  difficulties  were  se  -ious.     A  war  with  Hoi- 


168  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

land  could  be  carried  on  only  at  enormous  cost.i  The  ordinary 
revenue  was  not  more  than  sufficient  to  support  the  govern 
ment  in  time  of  peace.  The  eight  hundred  thousand  pounds 
out  of  which  the  Commons  had  just  been  tricked  would  not 
defray  the  naval  and  military  charge  of  a  single  year  of  hos- 
tilities. After  the  terrible  lesson  given  by  the  Long  Par- 
liament, even  the  Cabal  dtd  not  venture  to  recommend 
benevolences  or  ship-money.  In  this  perplexity  Ashley  and 
Clifford  proposed  a  flagitious  breach  of  public  faith.  The 
goldsmiths  of  London  were  then  not  only  dealers  in  the 
precious  metals,  but  also  bankers,  and  were  in  the  habit  of 
advancing  large  sums  of  money  to  the  government.  In 
return,  for  these  advances  they  received  assignments  on  the 
revenue,  and  were  repaid  with  .nterest  as  the  taxes  came  in. 
About  thirteen  hundred  thousand  pounds  had  been  in  this 
way  intrusted  to  the  honor  of  the  state.  On  a  sudden  it  was 
announced  that  it  was  not  convenient  to  pay  the  principal,  and 
that  the  lenders  must  content  themselves  with  interest.  They 
were  consequently  unable  to  meet  their  own  engagements 
The  Exchange  was  in  an  uproar ;  several  great  mercantile 
houses  broke  ;  and  dismay  and  distress  spread  through  ah 
society.  Meanwhile  rapid  strides  were  made  towards  des- 
potism. Proclamations,  dispensing  with  acts  of  parliament,  or 
enjoining  what  only  parliament  could  lawfully  enjoin,  appeared 
in  rapid  succession.  Of  these  edicts  the  most  important  was 
the  Declaration  of  Indulgence.  By  this  instrument  the 
penal  laws  against  Roman  Catholics  were  at  once  set  aside  bv 
royal  authority ;  and,  that  the  real  object  of  the  measure 
might  not  be  perceived,  the  laws  against  Protestant  Noncon 
formists  were  also  suspended. 

A  few  days  after  the  appearance  of  the  Declaration  of 
Indulgence,  war  was  proclaimed  against  the  United  Provinces. 
By  sea  the  Dutch  maintained  the  struggle  with  honor ;  but  on 
land  they  were  at  first  borne  down  by  irresistible  force.  A 
great  French  army  passed  the  Rhine.  Fortress  after  fortress 
opened  its  gates.  Three  of  the  seven  provinces  of  the  fed- 
eration were  occupied  by  the  invaders.  The  fires  of  the 
hostile  camp  were  seen  from  the  tops  of  the  stadthouse  of 
Amsterdam.  The  republic,  thus  fiercely  assailed  from  with- 
out, was  torn  at  the  same  time  by  internal  dissensions.  The 
government  was  in  the  hands  of  a  close  oligarchy  of  powerful 
burghers.  There  were  numerous  self-elected  town  councils 
each  of  which  exercised,  within  its  own  sphere,  many  of  the 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

rights  of  sovereignty.  These  councils  sent  delegates  to  the 
provincial  states,  and  the  provincial  states  again  sent  delegates 
to  the  States  General.  An  hereditary  first  magistrate  was  no 
essential  part  of  this  polity.  Nevertheless  one  family, 
singularly  fertile  of  great  men,  had  gradually  obtained  a 
large  and  somewhat  indefinite  authority.  William,  first  of 
the  name,  Prince  of  Orange  Nassau,  and  Stadtholder  of  Hol- 
land, had  headed  the  memorable  insurrection  against  Spain. 
His  son  Maurice  had  been  captain-general  and  first  minister 
of  the  States,  had,  by  eminent  abilities  and  public  services, 
and  by  some  treacherous  and  cruel  actions,  raised  himself  to 
kingly  power,  and  had  bequeathed  a  great  part  of  that  power 
to  his  family.  The  influence  of  the  Stadtholders  was  an  object 
of  extreme  jealousy  to  the  municipal  oligarchy.  But  the 
army,  and  that  great  body  of  citizens  which  was  excluded 
from  all  share  in  the  government,  looked  on  the  burgomasters 
and  deputies  with  a  dislike  resembling  the  dislike  with  which 
the  legions  and  the  common  people  of  Rome  regarded  the 
senate,  and  were  as  zealous  for  the  House  of  Orange  as  the 
legions  and  the  common  people  of  Rome  for  the  House  of 
Caesar.  The  Stadtholder  commanded  the  forces  of  the  com- 
monwealth, disposed  of  all  military  commands,  had-  a  large 
share  of  the  civil  patronage,  and  was  surrounded  by  pomp 
almost  regal. 

Prince  William  the  Second  had  been  strongly  opposed  by 
ihe  oligarchical  party.  His  life  had  terminated  in  the  year 
1650,  amidst  great  civil  troubles.  He  died  childless :  the 
adherents  of  his  house  were  left  for  a  short  time  without  a 
head ;  and  the  powers  which  he  had  exercised  were  divided 
between  the  town  councils,  the  provincial  states,  and  the  States 
General. 

But,  a  few  days  after  William's  death,  his  widow,  Mary, 
daughter  of  Charles  the  First,  King  of  Great  Britain,  gave 
birth  to  a  son,  destined  to  raise  the  glory  and  authority  of 
the  House  of  Nassau  to  the  highest  point,  to  save  the 
United  Provinces  from  slavery,  to  curb  the.  power  of  France, 
and  to  establish  the  English  constitution  on  a  lasting  foun- 
dation. 

This  prince,  named  William  Henry,  was  from  his  birth  an 
object  of  serious  apprehension  to  the  party  now  supreme  in 
Holland,  and  of  loyal  attachment  to  the  old  friends  of  his 
line.  He  enjoyed  high  consideration  as  the  possessor  of  a 
splendid  fortune,  as  the  chief  of  one  of  the  most  illustrious 

VOL.  I.  15 


170  BISTORT   OF    ENGLAND. 

houses  in  Europe,  as  a  sovereign  prince  of  the  German 
empire,  as  a  prince  of  the  blood  royal  of  England,  and,  above 
all,  as  the  descendant  of  the  founders  of  Batavian  liberty. 
But  the  high  office  which  had  once  been  considered  as  hered- 
itary in  his  family,  remained  in  abeyance  ;  and  the  intention 
of  the  anstocratical  party  was,  that  there  should  never  be 
another  Stadtholder.  The  want  of  a  first  magistrate  was,  to 
a  great  extent,  supplied  by  the  Grand  Pensionary  of  the 
Province  of  Holland,  John  De  Witt,  whose  abilities,  firmness, 
and  integrity  had  raised  him  to  unrivalled  authority  in  the 
counsels  of  the  municipal  oligarchy. 

The  French  invasion  produced  a  complete  change.  The 
suffering  and  terrified  people  raged  fiercely  agatnst  the  gov- 
ernment. In  their  madness  they  attacked  the  bravest  captains 
and  the  ablest  statesmen  of  the  distressed  commonwealth. 
De  Ruyter  was  insulted  by  the  rabble.  De  Witt  was  torn  in 
pieces  before  the  gate  of  the  palace  of  the  States  General  al 
the  Hague.  The  Prince  of  Orange,  who  had  no  share  in  the 
guilt  of  the  murder,  but  who,  on  this  occasion,  as  on  another 
lamentable  occasion  twenty  years  later,  extended  to  crimes 
perpetrated  in  his  cause  an  indulgence  which  has  left  a  stain 
on  his  glory,  became  chief  of  the  government  without  a  rival. 
Young  as  he  was,  his  ardent  and  unconquerable  spirit,  though 
disguised  by  a  cold  and  sullen  manner,  soon  roused  the 
courage  of  his  dismayed  countrymen.  It  was  in  vain  that 
both  his  uncle  and  the  French  King  attempted  by  splendid 
offers  to  seduce  him  from  the  cause  of  the  republic.  To  the 
States  General  he  spoke  a  high  and  inspiriting  language.  He 
even  ventured  to  suggest  a  scheme  which  has  an  aspect  of 
antique  heroism,  and  which,  if  it  had  been  accomplished, 
would  have  been  the  noblest  subject  for  epic  song  that  is  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  compass  of  modern  history.  He  told  the 
deputies  that,  even  if  their  •  natal  soil  and  the  marvels  with 
which  human  industry  had  covered  it  were  buried  under  the 
ocean,  all  was  not  lost.  The  Hollanders  might  survive  Hol- 
land. Liberty  an.d  pure  religion,  driven  by  tyrants  and  bigots 
from  Europe,  might  take  refuge  in  the  farthest  isles  of  Asia. 
The  shipping  in  the  ports  of  the  republic  would  suffice  to 
carry  two  hundred  thousand  emigrants  to  the  Indian  Archi- 
pelago. There  the  Dutch  commonwealth  might  commence  a 
new  and  more  glorious  existence,  and  might  rear,  under  the 
Southern  Cross,  amidst  the  sugar-canes  and  nuimeg-trees,  the 
Exchange  of  a  wealthier  Amsterdam,  and  the  schools  of  a 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  171 

more  learned  Ley  den.  The  national  spirit  swelled  and  rose 
high.  The  terms  offered  by  the  allies  were  firmly  rejected. 
The  dikes  were  opened.  The  whole  country  was  one  great 
lake,  from  which  the  cities,  with  their  ramparts  and  steeples, 
rose  like  islands.  The  invaders  were  forced  to  save  them- 
selves from  destruction  by  a  precipitate  retreat.  Lewis,  who, 
though  he  sometimes  thought  it  necessary  to  appear  at  the 
head  of  his  troops,  greatly  preferred  a  palace  to  a  camp,  had 
already  returned  to  enjoy  the  adulation  of  poets  and  the  smiles 
of  ladies  in  the  newly-planted  alleys  of  Versailles. 

And  now  the  tide  turned  fast.  The  event  of  the  maritime 
war  had  been  doubtful :  by  land  the  United  Provinces  had  ob- 
tained a  respite ;  and  a  respite,  though  short,  was  of  infinite 
mportance.  Alarmed  by  the  vast  designs  of  Lewis,  both  the 
branches  of  the  great  House  of  Austria  sprang  to  arms.  Spain 
and  Holland,  divided  by  the  memory  of  ancient  wrongs  and 
humiliations,  were  reconciled  by  the  nearness  of  the  common 
danger.  From  every  part  of  Germany  troops  poured  towards 
the  Rhine.  The  English  government  had  already  expended 
all  the  funds  which  had  been  obtained  by  pillaging  the  public 
creditor.  No  loan  could  be  expected  from  the  city.  An  at- 
tempt to  raise  taxes  by  the  royal  authority  would  have  at  once 
produced  a  rebellion ;  and  Lewis,  who  had  now  to  maintain  a 
contest  against  half  Europe,  was  in  no  condition  to  furnish  the 
means  of  coercing  the  people  of  England.  It  was  necessary 
to  convoke  the  parliament. 

In  the  spring  of  1673,  therefore,  the  houses  reassembled 
after  a  recess  of  near  two  years.  Clifford,  now  a  peer  and 
Lord  Treasurer,  and  Ashley,  now  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  and 
Lord  Chancellor,  were  the  persons  on  whom  the  king  chiefly 
relied  as  parliamentary  managers.  The  country  party  instant- 
ly began  to  attack  the  policy  of  the  Cabal :  but  the  attack  was 
made,  not  in  the  way  of  storm,  but  by  slow  and  scientific  ap- 
proaches. The  Commons  at  first  held  out  hopes  that  they 
would  give  support  to  the  king's  foreign  policy,  but  insisted 
that  he  should  purchase  that  support  by  abandoning  his  whole 
system  of  domestic  policy.  -Their  first  object  was  to  obtain 
the  revocation  of  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence.  Of  all  the 
many  unpopular  steps  taken  by  the  government  the  most  un- 
popular was  the  publishing  of  this  Declaration.  The  most  op- 
posite sentiments  had  been  shocked  by  an  act  so  liberal,  done 
m  a  manner  so  despotic.  All  the  enemies  of  religious  free- 
dom, and  all  the  friends  of  civil  freedom,  found  themselves  on 


172  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  same  side ;  and  those  two  classes  made  up  nineteen  twen 
tieths  of  the  nation.  The  zealous  Churchman  exclaimed 
against  the  favor  which  had  been  shown  both  to  th6  Papist  and 
to  the  Puritan.  The  Puritan,  though  he  might  rejoice  in  the 
suspension  of  the  persecution  by  which  he  had  been  harassed, 
felt  little  gratitude  for  a  toleration  which  he  was  to  share  with 
antichrist.  And  all  Englishmen  who  valued  liberty  and  law, 
saw  with  uneasiness  the  deep  inroad  which  the  prerogative 
had  made  into  the  province  of  the  legislature. 

It  must  in  candor  be  admitted  that  the.  constitutional  ques- 
tion was  then  not  quite  free  from  obscurity.  Our  ancient 
kings  had  undoubtedly  claimed  and  exercised  the  right  cf 
suspending  the  operation  of  penal  laws.  The  tribunals  had 
recognized  that  right.  Parliaments  had  suffered  it  to  pass  un- 
challenged. That  some  such  right  was  inherent  in  the  crown, 
few  even  of  the  country  party  ventured,  in  the  face  of  prece- 
dent and  authority,  to  deny.  Yet  it  was  clear  that,  if  this 
prerogative  were  without  limit,  the  English  government  could 
scarcely  be  distinguished  from  a  pure  despotism.  That  there 
was  a  limit  was  fully  admitted  by  the  king  and  his  ministers. 
Whether  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  lay  within  or  without 
the  limit  was  the  question ;  and  neither  party  could  succeed 
in  tracing  any  line  which  would  bear  examination.  Some  op- 
ponents of  the  government  complained  that  the  Declaration 
suspended  not  less  than  forty  statutes.  But  why  not  forty  as 
well  as  one  ?  There  was  an  orator  who  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  the  king  might  constitutionally  dispense  with  bad  laws, 
but  not  with  good  laws.  The  absurdity  of  such  a  distinction 
it  is  needless  to  expose.  The  doctrine  which  seems  to  have 
been  generally  received  in  the  House  of  Commons  was,  that 
the  dispensing  power  was  confined  to  secular  matters,  and  did 
not  extend  to  laws  enacted  for  the  security  of  the  established 
religion.  Yet,  as  the  king  was  supreme  head  of  the  Church, 
it  should  seem  that,  if  he  possessed  the  dispensing  power  at 
all,  he  might  well  possess  that  power  where  the  Church  was 
concerned.  When  the  courtiers  on  the  other  side  attempted 
to  point  out  the  bounds  of  this  prerogative,  they  were  not  more 
successful  than  the  opposition  had  been.* 

The  truth  is,  that  the  dispensing  power  was  a  great  anomaly 

*  The  most  sensible  thing  said  in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  this 
subject,  came  from  Sir  William  Coventry:  "Our  ancestors  never 
did  draw  a  line  to  circumscribe  prerogative  and  liberty." 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  173 

in  politics.  It  was  utterly  inconsistent  in  theory  with  the  prin- ' 
ciples  of  «iixed  government :  but  it  had  grown  up  in  times 
when  people  troubled  themselves  little  about  theories.  It  had 
not  been  very  grossly  abused  in  practice.  It  had  therefore 
been  tolerated,  and  had  gradually  acquired  a  kind  of  prescrip- 
tion.  At  length  it  was  employed,  after  a  long  interval,  in  an 
enlightened  age,  and  at  an  important  conjuncture,  to  an  extent 
never  before  known,  and  for  a  purpose  generally  abhorred. 
It  was  instantly  subjected  to  a  severe  scrutiny.  Men  did  not 
indeed,  at  first,  venture  to  pronounce  it  altogether  unconsti- 
tutional. But  they  began  to  perceive  that  it  was  at  direct 
variance  with  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  and  would,  if  left 
unchecked,  turn  the  English  government  from  a  limited  into 
an  absolute  monarchy. 

Under  the  influence  of  such  apprehensions,  the  Commons 
denied  the  king's  right  to  dispense,  not  indeed  with  all  penal 
statutes,  but  with  penal  statutes-  in  matters  ecclesiastical,  and 
gave  him  plainly  to  understand  that,  unless  he  renounced  that 
right,  they  would  grant  no  supply  for  the  Dutch  war.  He,  for 
a  moment,  showed  some  inclination  to  put  every  thing  to  haz- 
ard :  but  he  was  strongly  advised  by  Lewis  to  submit  to  ne- 
cessity, and  to  wait  for  better  times,  when  the  French  armies, 
now  employed  in  an  arduous  struggle  on  the  continent,  might 
be  available  for  the  purpose  of  suppressing  discontent  in  Eng- 
land. In  the  Cabal  itself  the  signs  of  disunion  and  treachery 
began  to  appear.  Shaftesbury,  with  his  proverbial  sagacity, 
saw  that  a  violent  reaction  was  at  hand,  and  that  all  things 
were  tending  towards  a  crisis  resembling  that  of  1640.  He 
was  determined  that  such  a  crisis  should  not  find  him  in  the; 
situation  of  Strafford.  He  therefore  turned  suddenly  round, 
and  acknowledged,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  that  the  Declaration 
was  illegal.  The  king,  thus  deserted  by  his  ally  and  by  his 
chancellor,  yielded,  cancelled  the  Declaration,  and  solemnly 
promised  that  it  should  never  be  drawn  into  precedent. 

Even  this  concession  was  insufficient.  The  Commons,  not 
content  with  having  forced  their  sovereign  to  annul  the  Indul- 
gence, next  extorted  his  unwilling  consent  to  a  celebrated  law, 
which  continued  in  force  down  to  the  reign  of  George  the 
Fourth.  This  law,  known  as  the  Test  Act,  provided  that  all 
persons  holding  any  office,  civil  or  military,  should  take  the 
oath  of  supremacy,  should  subscribe  a  declaration  against  Iran- 
substantiation,  and  should  publicly  receive  the  sacrament  ac- 
cording to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  preamble 
15  * 


174  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

expressed  hostility  only  to  the  Papists ;  but  the  enacting  clauses 
were  scarcely  more  unfavorable  to  the  Papists  than  to  the 
most  rigid  class  of  Puritans.  The  Puritans,  however,  terrified 
at  the  evident  leaning  of  the  court  towards  Popery,  and  en- 
COP  raged  by  some  churchmen  to  hope  that,  as  soon  as  the 
Roman  Catholics  should  have  been  effectually  disarmed,  relief 
would  be  extended  to  Protestant  Nonconformists,  made  little 
opposition ;  nor  could  the  king,  who  was  in  extreme  want  of 
money,  venture  to  withhold  his  assent.  The  act  was  passed  • 
and  tho  Duke  of  York  was  consequently  under  the  necessity 
of  resigning  the  great  place  of  lord  high  admiral.  , 

Hitherto  the  Commons  had  not  declared  against  the  Dutch 
war.  .  But,  when  the  king  had,  in  return  for  money  cautiously 
doled  out,  relinquished  his  whole  plan  of  domestic  policy, 
they  fell  impetuously  on  his  foreign  policy.  They  requested 
him  to  dismiss  Buckingham  ahd  Lauderdale  from  his  councils 
forever,  and  appointed  a  committee  to  consider  the  propriety 
of  impeaching  Arlington.  In  a  short  time  the  Cabal  was  no 
more.  Clifford,  who,  alone  of  the  five,  had  any  claim  to  be 
regarded  as  an  honest  man,  refused  to  take  the  new  test,  laid 
down  his  white  staff,  and  retired  to  his  country-seat.  Arling- 
ton quitted  the  post  of  secretary  of  state  for  a  quiet  and  dig- 
nified employment  in  the  royal  household.  Shaftesbury  and 
Buckingham  made  their  peace  with  the  opposition,  and  ap- 
peared at  the  head  of  the  stormy  democracy  of  the  city. 
Lauderdale,  however,  still  continued  to  be  minister  for  Scotch 
affairs,  with  which  the  English  parliament  could  not  interfere. 

And  now  the  Commons  urged  the  king  to  make  peace  with 
Holland,  and  expressly  declared  that  no  more  supplies  should 
be  granted  for  the  war,  unless  it  should  appear  that  the  enemy 
obstinately  refused  to  consent  to  reasonable  terms.  Charles 
found  it  necessary  to  postpone  to  a  more  convenient  season 
all  thought  of  executing  the  treaty  of  Dover,  and  to  cajole  the 
nation  by  pretending  to  return  to  the  policy  of  the  Triple 
Alliance.  Temple,  who,  during  the  ascendency  of  the  Cabal, 
had  lived  in  seclusion  among  his  books  and  flower-beds,  was 
called  forth  from  his  hermitage.  By  his  instrument*,  lity  a 
separate  peace  was  concluded  with  the  United  Provinces ; 
and  he  again  became  ambassador  at  the  Hagfie,  where  his 
presence  was  regarded  as  a  sure  pledge  for  the  sincerity  of 
his  court. 

The  chief  direction  of  affairs  was  now  intrusted  to  Sir  Thomas 
Osborn,  a  Yorkshire  baronet,  who  had,  in  the  House  of  Com- 


HISTORY    (.«"    ENGLAND.  175 

mons,  shown  eminent  talents  for  business  and  debate.  Osborn 
became  Lord  Treasurer,  and  was  soon  created  Earl  of  Danby. 
He  was  not  a  man  whose  character,  if  tried  by  any  high 
standard  of  morality,  would  appear  to  merit  approbation.  He 
was  greedy  of  wealth  and  honors,  corrupt  himself,  and  a  cor- 
rupter  of  others.  The  Cabal  had  bequeathed  to  him  the  art 
of  bribing  parliaments,  an  art  still  rude,  and  giving  little 
promise  of  the  rare  perfection  to  which  it  was  brought  in  the 
following  century.  He  improved  greatly  on  the  plan  of  the 
first  inventors.  They  had  merely  purchased  orators ;  but 
every  man  who  had  a  vote,  might  sell  himself  to  Danby. 
Yet  the  new  minister  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  nego- 
tiators of  Dover.  He  was  not  without  the  feelings  of  an 
Englishman  and  a  Protestant ;  nor  did  he,  in  his  solicitude  for 
his  own  interests,  ever  wholly  forget  the  interests  of  his  coun- 
try and  of  his  religion.  He  was  desirous,  indeed,  to  exalt  the 
prerogative ;  but  the  means  by  which  he  proposed  to  exalt  it 
were  widely  different  from  those  which  had  been  contemplated 
by  Arlington  and  Clifford.  The  thought  of  establishing  arbi- 
trary power,  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  foreign  arms,  and  by 
reducing  the  kingdom  to  the  rank  of  a  dependent  principality, 
never  entered  into  his  mind.  His  plan  was  to  rally  round  the 
monarchy  those  classes  which  had  been  the  firm  allies  of  the 
monarchy  during  the  troubles  of  the  preceding  generation, 
and  which  had  been  disgusted  by  the  recent  crimes  and 
errors  of.  the  court.  With  the  help  of  the  old  Cavalier  in- 
terest, of  the  nobles,  of  the  country  gentlemen,  of  the  clergy, 
and  of  the  universities,  it  might,  he  conceived,  be  possible  to 
make  Charles,  not  indeed  an  absolute  sovereign,  but  a  sover- 
eign scarcely  less  powerful  than  Elizabeth  had  been. 

Prompted  by  these  feelings,  Danby  formed  the  design  of 
securing  to  the  Cavalier  party  the  exclusive  possession  of  all 
political  power,  both  executive  and  legislative.  In  the  year 
1675,  accordingly,  a  bill  was  offered  to  the  Lords  which  pro- 
vided that  no  person  should  hold  any  office,  or  should  sit  in 
either  House  of  parliament,  without  first  declaring  on  oath 
that  he  considered  resistance  to  the  kingly  power  as  in  all 
cases  criminal,  and  that  he  would  never  endeavor  to  alter  the 
government  either  in  Church  or  State.  During  several  weeks 
the  debates,  divisions,  and  protests  caused  by  this  proposition 
kept  the  country  in  a  state  of  excitement. '  The  opposition  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  headed  by  two  members  of  the  Cabal  who 
were  desirous  to  make  their  peace  with  the  nation,  Bucking- 


176  msrrciRY  OF  ENGLAND. 

nam  and  Shaftesbury,  was  beyond  all  precedent  vehement  ana 
pertinacious,  and  at  length  proved  successful.  The  bill  was 
not  indeed  rejected,  but  was  retarded,  mutilated v  and  at  length 
suffered  to  drop.  / 

So  arbitrary  and  so  exclusive  was  Danby's  scheme  of  do- 
mestic policy.  His  opinions  touching  foreign  policy  did  him 
mor3  honor.  They  were  in  truth  directly  opposed  to  those 
of  the  Cabal,  and  differed  little  from  those  of  the  'country 
party.  He  bitterly  lamented  the  degraded  situation  to  which 
England  was  reduced,  and  vehemently  declared  that  his 
dearest  wish  was  to  cudgel  the  French  into  a  proper  respect 
for  her.  So  little  did  he  disguise  his  feelings  that,  at  a  great 
banquet  where  the  most  illustrious  dignitaries  of  the  State  and 
of  the  Church  were  assembled,  he  not  very  decorously  filled 
his  glass  to  the  confusion  of  all  who  were  against  a  war  with 
France.  He  would  indeed  most  gladly  have  seen  his  country 
united  with  the  powers  which  were  then  combined  against 
Lewis,  and  was  for  that  end  bent  on  placing  Temple,  the 
author  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  at  the  head  of  the  department 
which  directed  foreign  affairs.  But  the  power  of  the  prime 
minister  was  limited.  In  his  most  confidential  letters  he  com- 
plained that  the  infatuation  of  his  master  prevented  England 
from  taking  her  proper  place  among  European  nations. 
Charles  was  insatiably  greedy  of  French  gold  ;  he  had  by  no 
means  relinquished  the  hope  that  he  might,  at  some  future 
day,  be  able  to  establish  absolute  monarchy  by  the  help  of  the 
French  arms ;  and  for  botn  reasons  he  wished  to  maintain  a 
good  understanding  with  the  court  of  Versailles. 

Thus  the  sovereign  leaned  towards  one  system  of  foreign 
politics,  and  the  minister  towards  a  system  diametrically  op- 
posite. Neither  the  sovereign  nor  the  minister,  indeed,  was 
of  a  temper  to  pursue  any  object  with  undeviating  constancy. 
Each  occasionally  yielded  to  the  importunity  of  the  other ; 
and  their  jarring  inclinations  and  mutual  concessions  gave  to 
the  whole  administration  a  strangely  capricious  character. 
Charles  sometimes,  from  levity  and  indoience,  suffered  Danby 
to  take  steps  which  Lewis  resented  a»  mortal  injuries.  Danby, 
on  the  other  hand,  rather  than  relinquish  his  great  place, 
sometimes  stooped  to  compliances  which  caused  him  bitter 
pain  and  shame.  The  king  was  brought  to  consent  to  a  mar- 
riage between  the  Lady  Mary,  eldest  daughter  and  presump- 
tive heiress  of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  William  of  Orange,  the 
deadly  enemy  of  France,  and  the  hereditary  champion  of  the 


BISTORT    OP    ENGLAND.  177 

Reformation.  Nay,  the  brave  Earl  of  Ossory,  son  of  Ormond, 
was  sent  to  assist  the  Dutch  with  some  British  troops,  who,  on 
the  most  bloody  day  of  the  whole  war,  signally  vindicated  the 
national  reputation  for  stubborn  courage.  The  treasurer,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  induced,  not  only  to  connive  at  some 
scandalous  pecuniary  transactions  which  took  place  between 
his  master  and  the  court  of  Versailles,  but  to  become,  un- 
willingly indeed  and  ungraciously,  an  agent  in  those  trans- 
actions. 

Meanwhile,  the  country  party  was  driven  by  two  strong 
feelings  in  two  opposite  directions.  The  popular  leaders  were 
afraid  of  the  greatness  of  Lewis,  who  was  not  only  making 
head  against  the  whole  strength  of  the  continental  alliance, 
but  was  even  gaining  ground.  Yet  they  were  afraid  to  intrust 
their  own  king  with  me  means  of  curbing  France,  lest  those 
means  should  be  used  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  England. 
The  conflict  between  these  apprehensions,  both  of  which  were 
perfectly  legitimate,  made  the  policy  of  the  Opposition  seem 
as  eccentric  and  fickle  as  that  of  the  Court.  The  Commons 
called  for  a  war  with  France,  till  the  king,  pressed  by  Danby 
to  comply  with  their  wish,  seemed  disposed  to  yield,  and  began 
to  raise  an  army.  But,  as  soon  as  they  saw  that  the  recruiting 
had  commenced,  their  dread  of  Lewis  gave  place  to  a  nearer 
dread.  They  began  to  fear  that  the  new  levies  might  be  em- 
ployed on  a  service  in  which  Charles  took  much  more  interest 
than  in  the  defence  of  Flanders.  They  therefore  refused 
supplies,  and  clamored  for  disbanding  as  loudly  as  they  had 
just  before  clamored  for  arming.  Those  historians  who  have 
severely  reprehended  this  inconsistency  do  not  appear  to  have 
made  sufficient  allowance  for  the  embarrassing  situation  of 
subjects  who  have  reason  to  believe  that  their  prince  is  con- 
spiring with  a  foreign  and  hostile  power  against  their  liberties. 
To  refuse  him  military  resources  is  to  leave  the  state  defence- 
less. Yet  to  give  him  military  resources  may  be  only  to  arm 
him  against  the  state.  Under  such  circumstances,  vacillation 
cannot  be  considered  as  a  proof  of  dishonesty  or  even  of 
weakness. 

These  jealousies  were  studiously  fomented  by  the  French 
king.  He  had  long  kept  Er gland  passiv?  by  promising  to 
support  the  throne  against  the  parliament.  He  now,  alarmed 
at  finding  that  the  patriotic  counsels  of  Danby  seemed  likely 
..o  prevail  in  the  closet,  began  to  inflame  the  parliament  against 
the  throne.  Between  Lewis  and  the  country  party  there  was 

15* 


178  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

one  thing  and  cne  only,  in  common  —  profound  distrust  of 
Charles.  Could  the  country  party  have  been  certain  that  theii 
sovereign  meant  only  to  make  war  on  France,  they  would 
have  been  eager  to  support  him.  Could  Lewis  have  been  cer- 
tain that  the  new  levies  were  intended  only  to  make  war  on 
the  constitution  of  England,  he  would  have  made  no  attempt 
to  stop  them.  But  the  unsteadiness  and  faithlessness  of 
Charles  were  such  that  the  French  government  and  the  Eng- 
lish opposition,  agreeing  in  nothing  else,  agreed  in  disbeliev- 
ing his  protestations,  and  were  equally  desirous  to  keep  him 
poor  and  without  an  army.  Communications  were  opened 
between  Barillon,  the  ambassador  of  Lewis,  and  those  English 
politicians  who  had  always  professed,  and  who  indeed  sin- 
cerely felt,  the  gneatest  dread  and  dislike  of  the  French  ascen- 
dency. The  most  upright  member  of  the  country  party, 
William  Lord  Russell,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Bedford,  did  not 
scruple  to  concert  with  a  foreign  mission  schemes  for  embar- 
rassing his  own  sovereign.  This  was  the  whole  extent  of 
Russell's  offence.  His  principles  and  his  fortune  alike  raised 
him  above  all  temptations  of  a  sordid  kind  ;  but  there  is  too 
much  reason  to  believe  that  some  of  his  associates  were  less 
scrupulous.  It  would  be  unjust  to  impute  to  them  the  extreme 
wickedness  of  taking  bribes  to  injure  their  country.  On  the 
contrary,  they  meant  to  serve  her.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
deny  that  they  were  mean  and  indelicate  enough  to  let  a  for- 
eign prince  pay  them  for  serving  her.  Among  those  who 
cannot  be  acquitted  of  this  degrading  charge  was  one  man 
who  is  popularly  considered  as  the  personification  of  public 
spirit,  and  who,  in  spite  of  some  great  moral  and  intellectual 
faults,  has  a  just  claim  to  be  called  a  hero,  a  philosopher,  and 
a  patriot.  It  is  impossible  to  see  without  pain  such  a  name  in 
the  list  of  the  pensioners  of  France.  Yet  it  is  some  consola- 
tion to  reflect  that,  in  our  time,  a  public  man  would  be  thought 
lost  to  all  sense  of  duty  and  of  shame,  who  should  not  spurn 
from  him  a  temptation  which  conquered  the  virtue  and  the 
pride  of  Algernon  Sidney. 

The  effect  of  these  intrigues  was^  that  England,  though  she 
occasionally  took  a  menacing  attitude,  remained  inactive  till 
the  continental  war,  having  lasted  nearly  seven  years,  was 
terminated,  in  1678,  by  the  treaty  of  Nimeguen.  The  United 
Provinces,  which  in  1672  had  seemed  to  be  on  the  verge  of 
utter  ruin,  obtained  honorable  and  advantageous  terms.  This 
narrow  escape  was  generally  afcribed  to  the  ability  and  cour 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  179 

*  ge  of  the  young  Stadtholder.  His  fame  was  great  ..hrough- 
t/ut  Europe,  and  especially  among  the  English,  who  regarded 
him  as  one  of  their  own  princes,  and  rejoiced  to  see  him  the 
husband  of  their  future  queen.  France  retained  many  impor- 
tant towns  in  the  Low  Countries  and  the  great  province  of 
Franche  Comte.  Almost  the  whole  loss  was  borne  by  the 
decaying  monarchy  of  Spain. 

A  few  months  after  the  termination  of  hostilities  on  the  Con- 
tinent came  a  great  crisis  in  English  politics.  Towards  such 
a  crisis  things  had  been  tending  during  eighteen  years.  The 
whole  stock  of  popularity,  great  as  it  was,  with  which  the 
king  had  commenced  his  administration,  had  long  been  ex- 
pended. To  loyal  enthusiasm  had  succeeded  profound  disoe 
fection.  The  public  mind  had  now  measured  back  again  the 
space  over  which  it  had  passed  between  1640  and  1660,  and 
was  once  more  in  the  state  in  which  it  had  been  when  the 
Long  Parliament  met. 

The  prevailing  discontent  was  compounded  of  many  feel- 
ings. One  of  these  was  wounded  national  pride.  That  gen- 
eration had  seen  England,  during  a  few  years,  allied  on  equal 
terms  with  France,  victorious  over  Holland  and  Spain,  the 
mistress  of  the  sea,  the  terror  of  Rome,  the  head  of  the 
Protestant  interest.  Her  resources  had  not  diminished ;  and 
it  might  have  been  expected  that  she  would  have  been  at  least 
as  highly  considered  in  Europe  under  a  legitimate  king,  strong 
in  the  affection  and  willing  obedience  of  his  subjects,  as  she 
had  been  under  a  usurper  whose  utmost  vigilance  and  energy 
were  required  to  keep  down  a  mutinous  people.  Yet  she  had, 
in  consequence  of  the  imbecility  and  meanness  of  her  rulers, 
sunk  so  low  that  any  German  or  Italian  principality  which 
brought  five  thousand  men  into  the  field  was  a  more  important 
member  of  the  commonwealth  of  nations. 

With  the  bitter  sense  of  national  humiliation  was  mingled 
anxiety  for  civil  liberty.  Rumors,  indistinct  indeed,  but  per- 
haps the  more  alarming  by  reason  of  their  indistinctness, 
imputed  to  the  court  a  deliberate  design  against  all  the  consti- 
tutional rights  of  Englishmen.  It  had  even  been  whispered 
that  this  design  was  to  be  carried  into  effect  by  the  interven- 
tion of  foreign  arms.  The  thought  of  such  intervention  made 
the  blood,  even  of  the  Cavaliers,  boil  in  their  veins.  Some 
who  had  always  professed  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance  in  its 
full  extent  were  now  heard  to  mutter  that  *.h'tre  was  one  liitii- 


180  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

tation  to  that  doctrine.  If  a  foreign  force  were  brought  over 
to  coerce  the  nation,  they  would  not  answer  for  their  own 
patience. 

But  neither  national  pride  nor  anxiety  for  public  liberty  had 
so  great  an  influence  on  the  popular  mind  as  hatred  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion.  That  hatred  had  become  one  of 
the  ruling  passions  of  the  community,  and  was  as  strong  in 
the  ignorant  and  profane  as  in  those  who  were  Protestants 
from  conviction.  The  cruelties  of  Mary's  reign,  cruelties 
which  even  in  the  most  accurate  and  sober  narrative  excite 
just  detestation,  and  which  were  neither  accurately  nor  soberly 
related  in  the  popular  martyrologies,  the  conspiracies  against 
Elizabeth,  and  above  all  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  had  left  in  the 
minds  of  the  vulgar  a  deep  and  bitter  feeling,  which  was  kept 
up  by  annual  commemorations,  prayers,  bonfires,  and  proces- 
sions. It  should  be  added  that  those  classes  which  were 
peculiarly  distinguished  by  attachment  to  the  throne,  the  clergy 
and  the  landed  gentry,  had  peculiar  reasons  for  regarding  the 
Church  of  Rome  with  aversion.  The  clergy  trembled  for 
their  benefices  ;  the  landed  gentry  for  their  abbeys  and  great 
;ithes.  While  the  memory  of  the  reign  of  the  saints  was  still 
•recent,  hatred  of  Popery  had  in  some  degree  given  place  to 
hatred  of  Puritanism ;  but,  during  the  eighteen  years  which 
had  elapsed  since  the  Restoration,  the  hatred  of  Puritanism 
had  abated,  and  the  hatred  of  Popery  had  increased.  The 
stipulations  of  the  treaty  of  Dover  were  accurately  known  to 
very  few ;  but  some  hints  had  got  abroad.  The  general  im- 
pression was,  that  a  great  blow  was  about  to  be"  aimed  at  the  Prot- 
estant religion.  The  king  was  suspected  by  many  of  a  leaning 
towards  Rome.  His  brother  and  heir  presumptive  was  known 
to  be  a  big6ted  Roman  Catholic.  The  first  Duchess  of  York 
had  died  a  Roman  Catholic.  James  had  then,  in  defiance  of 
the  remonstrances  of  the  House  of  Commons,  taken  to  wife 
the  Princess  Mary  of  Modena,  another  Roman  Catholic.  If 
there  should  be  sons  by  this  marriage,  there  was  reason  to  fear 
that  they  might  be  bred  Roman  Catholics,  and  that  a  long 
succession  of  princes,  hostile  to  the  established  faith,  might 
sit  on  the  English  throne.  The  constitution  had  recently  been 
violated  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  Roman  Catholics 
trom  the  penal  laws.  The  ally  by  whom  the  policy  of  Eng- 
land had,  during  many  years,  been  chiefly  governed,  was  not 
only  a  Roman  Catholi«  but  a  perseci  tor  of  the  reformed 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  181 

churches.  Under  such  circumstances,  it  is  not  strange  thai 
the  common  people  should  have  been  inclined  to  apprehend  a 
return  of  the  times  of  her  whom  they  called  Bloody  Mary. 

Thus  the  nation  was  in  such  a  temper  that  the  smallest 
spark  might  raise  a  flame.  At  this  conjuncture  fire  was  set 
in  two  places  at  once  to  the  vast  mass  of  combustible  matter  ; 
and  in  a  moment  the  whole  was  in  a  blaze. 

The  French  court,  which  knew  Danby  to  be  its  mortal  ene- 
my, artfully  contrived  to  ruin  him  by  making  him  pass  for  its 
friend.  Lewis,  by  the  instrumentality  of  Ralph  Montague,  a 
faithless  and  shameless  man,  who  had  resided  in  France  as 
minister  from  England,  laid  before  the  House  of  Commons 
proofs  that  the  treasurer  had  been  concerned  in  an  application 
made  by  the  court  of  Whitehall  to  the  court  of  Versailles  for 
a  sum  of  money.  This  discovery  produced  its  natural  effect. 
The  treasurer  was,  in  truth,  exposed  to  the  vengeance  of  par- 
liament, not  on  account  of  his  delinquencies,  but  on  account 
of  his  merits ;  not  because  he  had  been  an  accomplice  in  a 
criminal  transaction,  but  because  he  had  been  a  most  unwill- 
ing and  unserviceable  accomplice.  But  of  the  circumstances 
which  have,  in  the  judgment  of  posterity,  greatly  extenuated 
his  fault  his  contemporaries  were  ignorant.  In  their  view  he 
was  the  broker  who  had  sold  England  to  France.  It  seemed 
clear  that  his  greatness  was  at  an  end,  and  doubtful  whether 
his  head  could  be  saved. 

Yet  was  the  ferment  excited  by  this  discovery  slight,  when 
compared  with  the  commotion  which  arose  when  it  was  noised 
abroad  that  a  great-Popish  plot  had  been  detected.  One  Titus 
Gates,  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  had,  by  his 
disorderly  life  and  heterodox  doctrine,  drawn  on  himself 
the  censure  of  his  spiritual  superiors,  had  been  compelled  to 
quit  his  benefice,  and  had  ever  since  led  an  infamous  and  va- 
grant life.  He  had  once  professed  himself  a  Roman  Catholic, 
and  had  passed  some  time  on  the  Continent  in  English  col- 
leges of  the  order  of  Jesus.  In  those  seminaries  he  had 
heard  much  wild  talk  about  the  best  means  of  bringing  Eng- 
land back  to  the  true  Church.  From  hints  thus  furnished  he 
constructed  a  hideous  romance,  resembling  rather  the  dream 
of  a  sick  man  than  any  transaction  which  ever  took  place  in 
the  real  world.  The  Pope,  he  said,  had  intrusted  the  govern 
ment  of  England  to  the  Jesuits.  The  Jesuits  had,  by  Som 
missions  under  the  seal  of  their  society,  appointed  Catholic 
clergymen,  noblemen,  and  gentlemen,  to  all  the  highest  offices 
VOL.  i.  16 


182  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

.n  Chuich  and  State.  The  Papists  had  burned  down  London 
once.  They  had  tried  to  burn  it  down  aga  n.  They  were  at 
that  moment  planning  a  scheme  for  setting  fire  to  all  the  ship- 
ping in  the  Thames.  They  were  to  rise  at  a  signal  and 
massacre  all  their  Protestant  neighbors.  A  French  army  was 
at  the  same  time  to  land  in  Ireland.  All  the  leading  states- 
men and  divines  of  England  were  to  be  murdered.  Three  or 
four  schemes  had  been  formed  for  assassinating  the  king.  He 
was  to  be  stabbed.  He  was  to  be  poisoned  in  his  medicine. 
He  was  to  be  shot  with  silver  bullets.  The  public  mind  was 
so  sore  and  excitable  that  these  lies  readily  found  credit  with 
the  vulgar ;  and  two  events  which  speedily  took  place  led  even 
some  reflecting  men  to  suspect  that  the  tale,  though  evidently 
distorted  and  exaggerated,  might  have  some  foundation. 

Edward  Coleman,  a  very  busy,  and  not  very  honest,  Roman 
Catholic  intriguer,  had  been  among  the  persons  accused. 
Search  was  made  for  his  papers.  It  was  found  that  he  had 
just  destroyed  the  greater  part  of  them.  But  a  few  which  had 
escaped  contained  some  passages  which,  to  minds  strongly 
prepossessed,  might  seem  to  confirm  the  evidence  of  Gates. 
Those  passages  indeed,  when  candidly  construed,  appear  to 
express  little  more  than  the  hopes  which  the  posture  of  affairs, 
the  predilections  of  Charles,  the  still  stronger  predilections  of 
James,  and  the  relations  existing  between  the  French  and 
English  courts,  might  naturally  excite  in  the  mind  of  a  Roman 
Catholic  strongly  attached  to  the  interests  of  his  Church.  But 
the  country  was  not  then  inclined  to  construe  the  letters  of 
Papists  candidly  ;  and  it  was  urged,  with  some  show  of  rea- 
son, that,  if  papers  which  had  been  passed  over  as  unimpor- 
tant were  filled  with  matter  so  suspicious,  some  great  mystery 
of  iniquity  must  have  been  contained  in  those  documents 
which  had  been  carefully  committed  to  the  flames. 

A  few  days  later  it  was  known  that  Sir  Edmondsbury 
Godfrey,  an  eminent  justice  of  the  peace  who  had  taken  the 
depositions  of  Gates  against  Coleman,  had  disappeared.  Search 
was  made ;  and  Godfrey's  corpse  was  found  in  a  field  near 
London.  It  was  clear  that  he  had  died  by  violence.  It  was 
equally  clear  that  he  had  not  been  set  upon  by  robbers.  His 
fate  is  to  this  day  a  secret.  Some  think  that  he  perished  by 
his  own  hand ;  some,  that  he  was  slain  by  a  private  enemy; 
The  most  improbable  supposition  is,  that  he  was  murdered  by 
the  party  hostile  to  the  court,  in  order  to  give  color  to  Uie  story 
of  the  plot.  The  most  probable  supposition  seems,  on  tho 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  183 

*rhole,  to  be  that  some  hot-headed  Roman  Catholic,  driven  to 
frenzy  by  the  lies  of  Gates  and  by  the  insults  of  the  multitude, 
and  -not  nicely  distinguishing  between  the  perjured  accuser  and 
the  innocent  magistrate,  had  taken  a  revenge  of  which  the 
history  of  persecuted  sects  furnishes  but  too  many  examples 
If  this  were  so,  the  assassin  must  have  afterwards  bitterly  ex- 
ecrated his  own  wickedness  and  folly.  The  capital  and  the 
whole  nation  went  mad  with  hatred  and  fear.  The  penal  laws, 
which  had  begun  to  lose  something  of  their  edge,  were  sharp- 
ened anew.  Every  where  justices  were  busied  in  searching 
houses  and  seizing  papers.  All  the  jails  were  filled  with  Pa- 
pists. London  had  the  aspect  of  a  city  in  a  state  of  siege. 
The  trainbands  were  under  arms  all  night.  Preparations  were 
made  for  barricading  the  great  thoroughfares.  Patrols  marched 
up  and  down  the  streets.  Cannon  were  planted  round  White- 
hall. No  citizen  thought  himself  safe  unless  he  carried  under 
his  coat  a  small  flail  loaded  with  lead  to  brain  the  Popish 
assassins.  The  corpse  of  the  murdered  magistrate  was  exhib- 
ited during  several  days  to  the  gaze  of  great  multitudes, 
and  was  then  committed  to  the  grave  with  strange  and  terrible 
ceremonies,  which  indicated  rather  fear  and  the  thirst  of  ven- 
geance than  sorrow  or  religious  hope.  The  Houses  insisted 
that  a  guard  should  be  placed  in  the  vaults  over  which  they 
sate,  in  order  to  secure  them  against  a  second  gunpowder  plot. 
All  their  proceedings  were  of  a  piece  with  this  demand.  Ever 
since  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the  oath  of  supremacy  had  been 
exacted  from  members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Some 
Roman  Catholics,  however,  had  contrived  so  to  interpret  that 
oath  that  they  could  take  it  without  scruple.  A  more  strin- 
gent test  was  now  added,  and  the  Roman  Catholic  lords  were 
for  the  first  time  excluded  from  their  seats  in  parliament.  The 
Duke  of  York  was  driven  from  the  privy  council.  Strong 
resolutions  were  adopted  against  the  queen.  The  Commons 
threw  one  of  the  secretaries  of  state  into  prison  for  having 
countersigned  commissions  directed  to  gentlemen  who  were 
not  good  Protestants.  They  impeached  the  lord  treasurer  of 
high  treason.  Nay,  they  so  far  forgot  the  doctrine,  whicn, 
while  the  memory  of  the  civil  war  was  still  recent,  they  had 
loudly  professed,  that  they  even  attempted  to  wrest  the  com- 
mand of  the  militia  out  of  the  king's  hands  To  such  a  tem- 
per had  eighteen  years  of  misgovernment  brought  the  most 
loyal  parliament  that  had  ever  met  in  England. 

Yet  it  mav  seem  strange  that,  even  in  that  extremity,  the 


184  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

sing  should  have  ventured  to  appeal  to  the  people ;  for  th» 
people  were  more  excited  than  their  representatives.  The 
Lower  House,  discontented  as  it  was,  contained  a  larger  number 
of  Cavaliers  than  were  likely  to  find  seats  again.  But  it  was 
thought  that  a  dissolution  would  put  a  stop  to  the  prosecution 
of  the  lord  treasurer,  a  prosecution  which  might  probably 
bring  to  light  all  the  guilty  mysteries  of  the  French  alliance, 
and  might  thus  cause  extreme  personal  annoyance  and 
embarrassment  to  Charles.  Accordingly,  in  January,  1679, 
the  parliament,  which  had  been  in  existence  ever  since  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1661,  was  dissolved ;  and  writs  were 
issued  for  a  general  election. 

During  some  weeks  the  contention  over  the  whole  country 
was  fierce  and  obstinate  beyond  example.  Unprecedented 
sums  were  expended.  New  tactics'were  employed.  It  was 
remarked  by  the  pamphleteers  of  that  time  as  something 
extraordinary  that  horses  were  hired  at  a  great  charge  for  the 
conveyance  of  electors.  The  practice  of  splitting  freeholds 
for  the  purpose  of  multiplying  votes  dates  from  this  memo- 
rable struggle.  Dissenting  preachers,  who  had  long  hidden 
themselves  in  quiet  nooks  from  persecution,  now  emerged 
from  their  retreats,  and  rode  from  village  to  village,  for  the 
purpose  of  rekindling  the  zeal  of  the  scattered  people  of  God. 
The  tide  ran  strong  against  the  government.  Most  of  the 
new  members  came  up  to  Westminster  in  a  mood  little  differing 
from  that  of  their  predecessors  who  had  sent  Strafford  and 
Laud  to  the  Tower. 

Meanwhile  the  courts  of  justice,  which  ought  to  be,  in  the 
midst  of  political  commotions,  sure  places  of  refuge  for  the 
innocent  of  every  party-,  were  disgraced  by  wilder  passions 
and  fouler  corruptions  than  were  to  be  found  even  on  the 
hustings.  The  tale  of  Gates,  though  it  had  sufficed  to  con- 
vulse the  whole  realm,  would  not,  until  confirmed  by  other 
evidence,  suffice  to  destroy  the  humblest  of  those  whom  he 
had  accused.  For,  by  the  old  law  of  England,  two  wit- 
nesses are  necessary  to  establish  a  charge  of  treason.  But 
the  success  of  the  first  impostor  produced  its  natural  con- 
sequences. In  a  few  weeks  he  had  been  raised  from  penury 
and  obscurity  to  opulence,  to  power  whrch  made  him  the 
dread  of  princes  and  nobles,  and  to  notorie  v  such  as  has  for 
low  and  bad  minds  all  the  attractions  of  glory.  He  was  not 
long  without  coadjutors  and  rivals.  A  wretch  named  Carstairs, 
who  had  earned  a  living  in  Scotland  by  going  disguised  t« 


HlsTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  185 

conventicles  ar  d  thet  informing  against  the  preachers,  led 
the  way.  Bedloe,  a  noted  swindler,  followed ;  and  soon, 
from  all  the  brothels,  gambling-houses,  and  spunging-houses 
of  London,  false  witnesses  poured  forth  to  swear  away 
the  lives  of  Roman  Catholics.  One  came  with  a  story  about 
an  awny  of  thirty  thousand  men  who  were  to  muster  in 
the  disguise  of  pilgrims  at  Corunna,  and  to  sail  thence  to 
Wales.  Another  had  been  promised  canonization  and  five 
hundred  pounds  to  murder  the  king.  A  third  had  stepped 
into  an  eating-house  in  Covent  Garden  and  had  there  heard  a 
great  Roman  Catholic  banker  vow,  in  the  hearing  of  all  the 
guests  and  drawers,  to  kill  the  heretical  tyrant.  Gates,  that  he 
might  not  be  eclipsed  by  his  imitators,  soon  added  a  large 
supplement  to  his  original  narrative.  He  had  the  portentous 
impudence  to  affirm,  among  other  things,  that  he  had  once 
stood  behind  a  door  which  was  ajar,  and  had  there  overheard 
the  queen  declare  that  she  had  resolved  to  give  her  consent 
to  the  assassination  of  her  husband.  The  vulgar  believed, 
and  the  highest  magistrates  pretended  to  believe,  even  such 
fictions  as  these.  The  chief  judges  of  the  realm  were  corrupt, 
cruel,  and  timid.  The  leaders  of  the  country  party  encour- 
aged the  prevailing  delusion.  The  most  respectable  among 
them,  indeed,  were  themselves  so  far  deluded  as  to  believe 
the  greater  part  of  the  evidence  of  the  plot  to  be  true.  Such 
men  as  Shaftesbury  and  Buckingham  doubtless  perceived 
that  the  whole  was  a  romance.  But  it  was  a  romance  which 
served  their  turn  ;  and  to  their  seared  consciences  the  death 
of  an  innocent  man  gave  no  more  uneasiness  than  the  death 
of  a  partridge.  The  juries  partook  of  the  feelings  then  com- 
mon throughout  the  nation,  and  were  encouraged  by  the 
bench  to  indulge  those  feelings  without  restraint.  The  mul- 
titude applauded  Gates  and  his  confederates,  hooted  and  pelted 
the  witnesses  who  appeared  on  behalf  of  the  accused,  and 
shouted  with  joy  when  the  verdict  .of  guilty  was  pronounced. 
It  was  in  vain  that  the  sufferers  appealed  to  the  respectability 
of  their  past  lives  ;  for  the  public  mind  was  possessed  with  a 
.belief  that  the  more  conscientious  a  Papist  was,  the  more 
likely  he  must  be  to  plot  against  a  Protestant  government.  It 
was  in  vain  that,  just  before  the  cart  passed  from  under  their 
feet,  they  resolutely  affirmed  their  innocence  ;  for  the  general 
opinion  was  that  a  good  Papist  considered  all  lies  which  were 
serviceable  to  his  church  as  not  only  excusable  but  mer- 
itorious. 

16* 


186  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

While  innocent  blood  was  shedding  under  the  forms  of 
justice,  the  new  parliament  met ;  and  such  was  the  violence 
of  the  predominant  party  that  even  men  whose  youth  had 
been  passed  amidst  revolutions,  men  who  remembered  the 
attainder  of  Strafford,  the  attempt  on  the  five  members,  the 
abolition  of  the  House  of  Lords,  the  execution  of  the  king, 
stood  aghast  at  the  aspect  of  public  affairs.  The  impeach- 
ment of  Danby  was  resumed.  He  pleaded  the  royal  pardon. 
But  the  Commons  treated  the  plea  with  contempt,  and  insisted 
that  the  trial  should  proceed.  Danby,  however,  was  not 
their  chief  object.  They  were  convinced  that  the  only  effec- 
tual way  of  securing  the  liberties  and  religion  of  the  nation 
was  to  exclude  the  Duke  of  York  from  the  throne. 

The  king  was  in  great  perplexity.  He  had  insisted  that 
his  brother,  the  sight  of  whom  inflamed  the  populace  to  mad- 
ness, should  retire  for  a  time  to  Brussels  ;  but  this  concession 
did  not  seem  to  have  produced  any  favorable  effect.  The 
Roundhead  party  was  now  decidedly  preponderant.  Towards 
that  party  leaned  millions  who  had  at  the  time  of  the  Res- 
toration leaned  towards  the  side  of  prerogative.  Of  the  old 
Cavaliers  many  participated  in  the  prevailing  fear  of  Popery, 
and  many,  bitterly  resenting  the  ingratitude  of  the  prince  for 
whom- they  had  sacrificed  so  much,  looked  on  his  distress  as 
carelessly  as  he  had  looked  on  theirs.  Even  the  Anglican 
clergy,  mortified  and  alarmed  by  the  apostasy  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  so  far  countenanced  the  opposition  as  to  join  cordially 
in  the  outcry  against  the  Roman  Catholics. 

The  king  in  this  extremity  had  recourse  to  Sir  William 
Temple.  Of  all  the  official  men  of  that  age  Temple  had 
preserved  the  fairest  character.  The  Triple  Alliance  had 
been  his  work.  He  had  refused  to  take  any  part  in  the 
politics  of  the  Cabal,  and  had,  while  that  administration 
directed  affairs,  lived  in  strict  privacy.  He  had  quitted  his 
retreat  at  the  call  of  Danby,  had  made  peace  between  Eng- 
land and  Holland,  and  had  borne  a  chief  part  in  bringing 
about  the  marriage  of  the  Lady  Mary  to  her  cousin  the 
Prince  of  Orange.  Thus  he  had  the  credit  of  every  one  of 
the  few  good  things  which  had  been  done  by  the  government 
bince  the  Restoration.  Of  the  numerous  crimes  and  blunders 
~>f  the  last  eighteen  years  none  could  be  imputed  to  him. 
His  private  life,  though  not  austere,  was  decorous ;  his  man- 
ners were  popular  ;  and  he  was  not  to  be  corrupted  either  by 
titles  or  by  money.  Something,  however,  was  wanting  to 


H1STOKY    OK     KNfiI,ANI>.  187 

ihe  character  of  this  respectable  statesman.  The  ter  jrature 
of  his  patriotism  was  lukewarm.  He  prized  his  eas<  ind  his 
personal  dignity  too  much,  and  shrank  from  responsibility 
with  a  pusillanimous  fear.  Nor  indeed  had  his  habits  fitted 
him  to  bear  a  part  in  the  conflicts  of  our  domestic  factions. 
He  had  reached  his  fiftieth  year  without  having  sate  in  the 
English  parliament ;  and  his  official  experience  had  been 
almost  entirely  acquired  at  foreign  courts.  He  was  justly 
esteemed  one  of  the  first  diplomatists  in  Europe  ;  but  the 
talents  and  accomplishments  of  a  diplomatist  are  widely  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  qualify  a  politician  to  lead  the  House 
of  Commons  in  agitated  times. 

The  scheme  which  he  proposed  showed  considerable 
ingenuity.  Though  not  a  profound  philosopher,  he  had 
thought  more  than  most  busy  men  of  the  world  on  the  general 
principles  of  government ;  and  his  mind  had  been  enlarged 
by  historical  studies  and  foreign  travel.  He  seems  to  have 
discerned  more  clearly  than  most  of  his  contemporaries  one 
cause  of  the  difficulties  by  which  the  government  was  beset. 
The  character  of  tfap  jfofflish  polity  was  gradually  chan- 
ging^The  parliament  nyfta  slowly^  but  constantly,  gaining 
ground  on  the  prerogative.  The  line  between  the  legislative 
and  executive  powers  was  in  theory  as  strungj^_inarked  as 
evei^.b.ut-4B'praCTtce~was"dgfly  becoming  fainter -and  fainter. 
The  theory  o£~the  constitution  was,  that  the  king  might  name 
his  own  ministers.  But  the  House  of  Commons  had  driven 
Clarendon,  the  Cabal,  and  Danby  successively  from  the  direc- 
tion of  affairs."  The  theory  of  the  constitution  was,  that  the 
king  alone  had  the  power  of  making  peace  and  war.  But 
the  House  of  Commons  had  forced  him  to  make  peace  with 
Holland,  and  had  all  but  forced  him  to  make  war  with  France. 
The  theory  of  the  constitution  was,  that  the  king  was  the  sole 
judge  of  the  cases  in  which  it  might  be  proper  to  pardon 
offenders.  Yet  he  was  so  much  in  dread  of  the  House  of 
Commons  that,  at  that  moment,  he  could  not  venture  to  rescue 
from  the  gallows  men  whom  he  well  knew  to  be  the  innocent 
victims  j)jLpjerJury_. 

Temple,  it  should"  seem,  was  desirous  to  secure  to  the  legis- 
ature  its  undoubted  constitutional  powers,  and  yet  to  prevent 
it,  if  possible,  from  encroaching  further  on  the  province  of  the 
executive  administration.  With  this  view  he  determined  tc 
interpgse  between  the  sovereign  and  the  parliament  a  body 
which  might  break  the  shock  of  their  collision.  There  was  a 


188  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

body,  ancient,  highly  honorable,  and  recognized  by  the  law, 
which,  he  thought,  might  be  so  remodelled  as  to  serve  this 
purpose.  He  determined  to  give  to  the  privy  council  a  new 
character  and  office  in  the  government.  ,  The  number  of 
councillors  he  fixed  at  thirty.  Fifteen  of  them  were  to  be 
the  chief  ministers  of  state,  of  law,  and  of  religion.  The 
other  fifteen  were  to  be  unplaced  noblemen  and  gentlemen 
of  ample  fortune  and  high  character.  There  was  to  be  no 
interior  cabinet.  All  the  thirty  were  to  be  intrusted  with 
every  political  secret,  and  summoned  to  every  meelmg;  and 
the  king  was  to  declare  that  he  would,  on  every  occasion,  be 
guided  by  their  advice. 

Temple  seems  to  have  thought  that,  by  this  contrivance,  he 
could  at  once  secure  the  nation  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
crown,  and  the  crown  against  the  encroachments  of  the  par- 
liament. It  was,  on  one  hand,  highly  improbable  that  schemes 
such  as  had  been  formed  by  the  Cabal  would  be  even  pro- 
pounded for  discussion  in  an  assembly  consisting  of  thirty 
eminent  men,  fifteen  of  whom  were  bound  by  no  tie  of 
interest  to  the  court.  On  the  other  hand,  it  might  be  hoped 
that  the  Commons,  content  with  the  guarantee  against  mis- 
government  which  such  a  council  furnished,  would  confine 
themselves  more  than  they  had  of  late  done  to  their  strictly 
legislative  functions,  and  would  no  longer  think  it  necessary 
to  pry  into  every  part  of  the  executive  administration. 

This  plan,  though  in  some  respecits  not  unworthy  of  the 
abilities  of  its  author,  was  in  principle  vicious.  The  new 
board  was  half  a  cabinet  and  half  a  parliament,  and,  like 
almost  every  other  contrivance,  whether  mechanical  or  polit- 
ical, which  is  meant  to  serve  two  purposes  altogether  different, 
failed  of  accomplishing  either.  It  was  too  large  and  too 
divided  to  be  a  good  administrative  body.  It  was  too  closely 
connected  with  the  crown  to  be  a  good  checking  body.  It 
contained  just  enough  of  popular  ingredients  to  make  it  a  bad 
council  of  state,  unfit  for  the  keeping  of  secrets,  for  the  con- 
ducting of  delicate  negotiations,  and  for  the  administration  of 
war.  Yet  were  these  popular  ingredients  by  no  means  suffi- 
cient to  secure  the  nation  against  misgovernment.  The  plan, 
therefore,  even  if  it  had  been  fairly  tried,  could  scarcely 
have  succeeded  ;  and  it  was  not  fairly  tried.  The  king  was 
fickle  and  perfidious ;  the  parliament  was  excited  and  unrea- 
vsonable  ;  and  the  materials  out  of  which  the  new  council  was 
made,  though  perhaps  the  best  which  that  age  afforded,  were 
•c. !  bad. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  189 

The  commencement  of  the  new  system  was,  however,  hailed 
with  general  delight ;  for  the  people  were  in  a  temper  to  think 
any  change  an  improvement.  They  were  also  pleased  by 
some  of  the  new  nominations.  Shaftesbury,  now  their  favor- 
ite, was  appointed  Lord  President.  Russell  and  some  other 
distinguished  members  of  the  country  party  were  sworn  of 
the  council.  But  in  a  few  days  all  was  again  in  confusion. 
The  inconveniences  of  having  so  numerous  a  cabinet  were 
such  that  Temple  himself  consented  to  infringe  one  of  the 
fundamental  rules  which  he  had  laid  down,  and  to  become  one 
of  a  small  knot  which  really  directed  every  thing.  With  hirr 
were  joined  three  other  ministers,  Arthur  Capel,  Earl  oi 
Essex,  George  Savile,  Viscount  Halifax,  and  Robert  Spencei 
Earl  of  Sunderland. 

Of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  then  first  commissioner  of  the  Treas 
ury,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he  was  a  man  of  solid,  though 
not  brilliant  parts,  and  of  grave  and  melancholy  character, 
that  he  had  been  connected  with  the  country  party,  and  that 
he  was  at  this  time  honestly  desirous  to  effect,  on  terms  bene- 
ficial to  the  state,  a  reconciliation  between  that  party  and  the 
throne. 

Among  the  statesmen  of  that  age  Halifax  was,  in  genius, 
the  first.  His  intellect  was  fertile,  subtle,  and  capacious. 
His  polished,  luminous,  and  animated  eloquence,  set  off  by 
the  silver  tones  of  his  voice,  was  the  delight  of  the  House  of 
Lords.  His  conversation  overflowed  with  thought,  fancy,  and 
wit.  His  political  tracts  well  deserve  to  be  studied  for  their 
literary  merit,  and  fully  entitle  him  to  a  place  among  English 
classics.  To  the  weight  derived  from  talents  so  great  and 
various,  he  united  all  the  influence  which  belongs  to  rank  and 
ample  possessions.  Yet  he  was  less  successful  in  politics  than 
many  who  enjoyed  smaller  advantages.  Indeed,  those  intel- 
lectual peculiarities  which  make  his  writings  valuable  fre- 
quently impeded  him  in  the  contests  of  active  life.  For  he 
always  saw  passing  events,  not  in  the  point  of  view  in  which 
they  commonly  appear  to  one  who  bears  a  part  in  them,  but 
in  the  point  of  view  in  which,  after  the  lapse  of  many  years, 
they  appear  to  the  philosophic  historian.  With  such  a  turn 
of  mind,  he  could  not  long  continue  to  act  cordially  with  any 
body  of  men.  All  the  prejudices,  all  the  exaggerations  of 
both  the  great  parties  in  the  state,  moved  his  scorn.  He  de- 
spised the  mean  arts  and  unreasonable  clamors  of  dema- 
gogues. He  despised  still  more  the  Tory  doctrines  of  divine 


190  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

right  and  passive  obedience.  He  sneered  impaitially  at  the 
bigotry  of  the  Churchman  and  at  the  bigotry  of  the  Puritan 
He  was  equally  unable  to  comprehend  how  any  man  should 
object  to  saints'  days  and  surplices,  and  how  any  man  should 
persecute  any  other  man  for  objecting  10  them.  In  temper 
he  was  what,  in  our  time,  is  called  a  Conservative.  In  theory 
he  was  a  republican.  Even  when  his  dread  of  anarchy  and 
his  disdain  for  vulgar  delusions  led  him  to  side  for  a  time  with 
the  defenders  of  arbitrary  power,  his  intellect  was  always 
with  Locke  and  Milton.  Indeed,  his  jests  upon  hereditary 
monarchy  were  sometimes  such  as  would  have  better  become 
a  member  of  the  Calf's  Head  Club  than  a  privy  councillor 
of  the  Stuarts.  In  religion  he  was  so  far  from  being  a  zealot 
that  he  was  called  by  the  uncharitable  an  "atheist ;  but  this 
imputation  he  vehemently  repelled ;  and  in  truth,  though  he 
sometimes  gave  scandal  by  the  way  in  which  he  exerted  his 
rare  powers  both  of  argumentation  and  of  ridicule  on  serious 
subjects,  he  seems  to  have  been  by  no  means  unsusceptible  of 
religious  impressions. 

He  was  the  chief  of  those  politicians  whom  the  two  great 
parties  contemptuously  called  Trimmers.  Instead  of  quarrel- 
ling with  this  nickname,  he  assumed  it  as  a  title  of  honor,  and 
vindicated,  with  great  vivacity,  the  dignity  of  the  appellation. 
Every  thing  good,  he  said,  trims  between  extremes.  The  tem- 
perate zone  trims  between  the  climate  in  which  men  are  roasted 
and  the  climate  in  which  they  are  frozen.  The  English  Church 
trims  between  the  Anabaptist  madness  and  the  Papist  lethargy. 
The  English  constitution  trims  between  Turkish  despotism  and 
Polish  anarchy.  Virtue  is  nothing  but  a  just  temper  between 
propensities  any  one  of  which,  if  indulged  to  excess,  "becomes 
vice.  Nay,  the  perfection  of  the  Supreme  Being  himself 
consists  in  the  exact  equilibrium  of  attributes,  none  of  which 
could  preponderate  without  disturbing  the  whole  moral  and 
physical  order  of  the  world.*  Thus  Halifax  was  a  trimmer  on 
principle.  He  was  also  a  trimmer  by  the  constitution  both  of  his 
head  and  of  his  heart.  His  understanding  was  keen,  scep- 
tical, inexhaustibly  fertile  in  distinctions  and  objections  ;  his 
taste  refined  ;  his  sense  of  the  ludicrous  exquisite  ;  his  temper 
placid  and  forgiving,  but  fastidious,  and  by  no  means  prone 
either  to  malevolence  or  to  enthusiastic  admiration.  Such  a 

*  It  will  be  seen  that  I  believe  Halifax  to  have  been  the  author,  or 
at  least  one  of  the  authors,  of  the  "  Character  of  a  Trimmer,"  which, 
for  a  time,  -went  under  the  name  of  his  kinsman,  Sir  William  Coventry 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  191 

man  could  not  long  be  constant  to  any  band  of  political  allies 
He  must  not,  however,  be  confounded  with  the  vulgar  crowd 
of  renegades.  For  though,  like  them,  he  passed  from  side  to 
side,  his  transition  was  always  in  the  direction  opposite  to 
theirs.  He  had  nothing  in  common  with  those  who  fly  from 
extreme  to  extreme,  and  who  regard  the  party  which  they 
have  deserted  with  an  animosity  far  exceeding  that  of  con- 
sistent enemies.  His  place  was  between  the  hostile  divisions 
of  the  community,  and  he  never  wandered  far  beyond  the 
frontier  of  either.  The  party  to  which  he  at  any  moment  be- 
longed was  the  party  which,  at  that  moment,  he  liked  least, 
because  it  was  the  party  of  which  at  that  moment  he  had  the 
nearest  view.  He  was  therefore  always  severe  upon  his  vio- 
lent associates,  $nd  was  always  in  friendly  relations  with  his 
moderate  opponents.  Every  faction  in  the  day  of  its  insolent 
and  vindictive  triumph  incurred  his  censure ;  and  every  fac- 
tion, when  vanquished  and  persecuted,  found  in  him  a  pro- 
tector. To  his  lasting  honor  it  must  be  mentioned  that  he 
attempted  to  save  those  victims  whose  fate  has  left  the  deepest 
stain  both  on  the  Whig  and  on  the  Tory  name. 

He  had  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  opposition,  and  had 
thus  drawn  on  himself  the  royal  displeasure,  which  was  indeed 
so  strong,  that  he  was  not  admitted  into  the  council  of  thirty 
without  much  difficulty  and  long  altercation.  As  soon,  how- 
ever, as  he  had  obtained  a  footing  at  court,  the  charms  of  his 
manner  and  of  his  conversation  made  him  a  favorite.  He 
was  seriously  alarmed  by  the  violence  of  the  public  discontent. 
He  thought  that  liberty  was  for  the  present-safe,  and  that  drder 
and  legitimate  authority  were  in  danger.  He  therefore,  as 
was  his  fashion,  joined  himself  to -the  weaker  side.  Perhaps 
his  conversion  was  not  wholly  disinterested.  For  study  and 
reflection,  though  they  had  emancipated  him  from  many  vul- 
gar prejudices,  had  left  him  a  slave  to  vulgar  desires.  Money 
he  did  not  want ;  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  ob- 
tained it  by  any  means  which,  in  that  age,  even  severe  censors 
considered  as  dishonorable ;  but  rank  and  power  had  strong 
attractions  for  him.  '  He  pretended,  indeed,  that  he  considered 
titles  and  great  offices  as  baits  which  could  allure  none  but 
fools,  that  he  hated  business,  pomp,  and  pageantry,  and  that 
his  dearest  wish  was  to  escape  from  the  bustle  and  glitter  of 
Whitehall  to  the  quiet  woods  which  surrounded  his  ancient 
hall  at  Rufford:  but  his  conduct  was  not  a  little  at  variance 
with  his  professions.  In  truth  he  wished  to  command  the 


192  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

respect  at  once  of  courtiers  and  of  philosophers,  to  be  admired 
for  attaining  high  dignities,  and  to  be  at  the  same  time  ad- 
mired for  despising  them. 

Sunderland  was  secretary  of  state.  In  this  man  the  politica 
immorality  of  his  age  was  personified  in  the  most  lively  man' 
ner.  Nature  had  given  him  a  keen  understanding,  a  restless 
and  mischievous  temper,  a  cold  heart,  and  an  abject  spirit. 
His  mind  had  undergone  a  training  by  which  all  his  vices  had 
been  nursed  up  to  the  rankest  maturity.  At  his  entrance  into 
public  life,  he  had  passed  several  years  in  diplomatic  posts 
abroad,  and  had  been,  during  some  time,  minister  in  France. 
Every  calling  has  its  peculiar  temptations.  There  is  no  injus- 
tice in  saying  that  diplomatists,  as  a  class,  have  always  been 
more  distinguished  by  their  address,  by  the*  art  with  which 
they  win  the  confidence  of  those  with  whom  they  have  to  deal, 
and  by  the  ease  with  which  they  catch  the  tone  of  every  so- 
ciety into  which  they  are  admitted,  than  by  generous  enthusi- 
asm or  austere  rectitude  ;  and  the  relations  between  Charles 
and  Lewis  were  such  that  no  English  nobleman  could  long 
reside  in  France  as  envoy,  and  retain  any  patriotic  or  honor- 
able sentiment.  Sunderland  came  forth  from  the  bad  school 
in  which  he  had  been  brought  up,  cunning,  supple,  shameless, 
free  from  all  prejudices,  and  destitute  of  all  principles.  He 
was,  by  hereditary  connection,  a  Cavalier :  but  with  the  Cav- 
aliers he  had  nothing  in  common.  They  were  zealous  for 
monarchy,  and  condemned  in  theory  all  resistance.  Yet  they 
had  sturdy  English  hearts  which  would  never  have  endured 
real  despotism.  He,  on  the  contrary,  had  a  languid  specula- 
tive liking  for  republican  institutions,  which  was  compatible 
with  perfect  readiness  to  be  in  practice  the  most  servile  instru- 
ment of  arbitrary  power.  Like  many  other  accomplished 
flatterers  and  negotiators,  he  was  far  more  skilful  in  the  art  of 
reading  the  characters,  and  practising  on  the  weaknesses,  of 
individuals,  than  in  the  art  of  discerning  the  feelings  of  great 
masses,  and  of  foreseeing  the  approach  of  great  revolutions. 
He  was  adroit  in  intrigue  ;  and  it  was  difficult  even  for  shrewd 
and  experienced  men  who  had  been  amply  forewarned  of  his 
perfidy  to  withstand  the  fascination  of  his  manner,  and  to 
refuse  credit  to  his  professions  of  attachment.  But  he  was  so 
intent  on  observing  and  courting  particular  persons,  that  he 
forgot  to  study  the  temper  of  the  nation.  He  therefore  mis- 
calculated grossly  with  respect  to  all  the  most  momentous 
events  of  his  time.  Every  important  movement  and  rebound 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  193 

of  the  public  mind  took  him  by  surprise ;  and  the  world >  una- 
ble to  understand  how  so  clever  a  man  could  be  blind  to  what 
was  clearly  discerned  by  the  politicians  of  the  coffee-houses, 
sometimes  attributed  to  deep  design  what  were  in  truth  mere 
blunders. 

It  was  only  in  private  conference  that  his  eminent  abilities 
displayed  themselves.  In  the  royal  closet,  or  in  a  very  small 
circle,  he  exercised  great  influence.  But  at  the  council  board 
he  was  taciturn ;  and  in  the  House  of  Lords  he  never  opened 
'ris  lips. 

The  four  confidential  advisers  of  the  crown  soon  found  that 
their  position  was  embarrassing  and  invidious.  The  other 
members  of  the  council  murmured  at  a  distinction  inconsistent 
with  the  king's  promises ;  and  some  of  them,  with  Shaftesbury 
at  their  head,  again  betook  themselves  to  strenuous  opposition 
in  parliament.  The  agitation,  which  had  been  suspended  by 
the  late  changes,  speedily  became  more  violent  than  ever.  It 
was  in  vain  that  Charles  offered  to  grant  to  the  Commons  any 
security  for  the  Protestant  religion  which  they  could  devise, 
provided  only  that  they  would  not  touch  the  order  of  succes- 
sion. They  would  hear  of  no  compromise.  They  would 
have  the  Exclusion  Bill,  and  nothing  but  the  Exclusion  Bill. 
The  king,  therefore,  a  few  weeks  after  he  had  publicly  prom- 
ised to  take  no  step  without  the  advice  of  his  new  council, 
went  down  to  the  House  of  Lords  without  mentioning  his  in- 
tention in  council,  and  prorogued  the  parliament. 

The  day  of  that  prorogation,  the  twenty-sixth  of  May,  1679, 
is  a  great  era  in  our  history.  For  on  that  day  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  received  the  royal  assent.  From  the  time  of  the 
Great  Charter,  the  substantive  law  respecting  the  personal  lib- 
erty of  Englishmen  had  been  nearly  the  same  as  at  present : 
but  it  had  been  inefficacious  for  want  of  a  stringent  system  of 
procedure.  What  was  needed  was  not  a  new  right,  but  a 
prompt  and  searching  remedy  ;  and  such  a  remedy  the  Ha- 
beas Corpus  Act  supplied.  The  king  would  gladly  have  re- 
fused his  consent  to  that  measure  :  but  he  was  about  to  appeal 
from  his  parliament  to  his  people  on  the  question  of  the  suc- 
cession ;  and  he  could  not  venture,  at  so  critical  a  moment,  to 
reject  a  bill  which  was  in  the  highest  degree  popular. 

On  the  same  day,  the  press  of  England  became  for  a  short 

time  free.     In  old  times  printers  had  been  strictly  controlled 

by  the  Court  of  Star  Chamber.     The  Long  Parliament  had 

abolished  the  Star  Chamber,  but  had,  in  spite  of  the  philosoph- 

VOL.  i.  17 


194  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ical  and  eloquent  expostulation  of  Milton,  established  and 
maintained  a  censorship.  Soon  after  the  Restoration,  an  act 
had  been  passed  which  prohibited  the  printing  of  unlicensed 
books ;  and  it  had  been  provided  that  this  act  should  continue 
in  force  till  the  end  of  the  first  session  of  the  next  parliament. 
That  moment  had  now  arrived ;  and  the  king,  in  the  very  act 
of  dismissing  the  Houses,  emancipated  the  press. 

Shortly  after  the  prorogation  came  a  dissolution  and  another 
general  election.  The  zeal  and  strength  of  the  opposition 
were  at  the  height.  The  cry  for  the  Exclusion  Bill  was  louder 
than  ever ;  and  with  this  cry  was  mingled  another  cry,  which 
fired  the  blood  of  the  multitude,  but  which  was  heard  with 
regret  and  alarm  by  all  judicious  friends  of  freedom.  Not 
only  the  rights  of  the.  Duke  of  York,  an  avowed  Papist,  but 
those  of  his  two  daughters,  sincere  and  zealous  Protestants, 
were  assailed.  It  was  confidently  affirmed  that  the  eldest  nat- 
ural son  of  the  king  had  been  born  in  wedlock,  and  was  law- 
ful heir  to  the  crown. 

Charles,  while  a  wanderer  on  the  Continent,  had  fallen  in 
at  the  Hague  with  Lucy  Walters,  a  Welsh  girl  of  great  beauty, 
but  of  weak  understanding  and  dissolute  manners.  She  be- 
came his  mistress,  and  presented  him  with  a  spn.  A  suspi- 
cious lover  might  have  had  his  doubts ;  for  the  lady  had 
several  admirers,  and  was  not  supposed  to  be  cruel  to  any. 
Charles,  however,  readily  took  her  word,  and  poured  forth  on 
little  James  Crofts,  as  the  boy  was  then  called,  an  overflowing 
fondness,  such  as  seemed  hardly  to  belong  to  that  easy,  but 
cool  and  careless  nature.  Soon  after  the  Restoration,  the 
young  favorite,  who  had  learned  in  France  the  exercises  then 
considered  necessary  to  a  fine  gentleman,  made  his  appear- 
ance at  Whitehall.  He  was  lodged  in  the  palace,  attended  by 
pages,  and  permitted  to  enjoy  several  distinctions  which  had 
till  then  been  confined  to  princes  of  the  blood  royal.  He  was 
married,  while  still  in  tender  youth,  to  Anne  Scott,  heiress  of 
the  noble  House  of  Buccleuch.  He  took  her  name,  and  re- 
ceived with  her  hand  possession  of  her  ample  domains.  The 
estate  which  he  acquired  by  this  match  was  popularly  esti 
mated  at  not  less  than  ten  thousand  pounds  a  year.  Titles, 
and  favors  more  substantial  than  titles,  were  lavished  on  him 
He  was  made  Duke  of  Monmouth  in  England,  Duke  of  Buc- 
cleuch in  Scotland,  a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  Master  of  the 
Horse,  Commander  of  the  first  troop  of  Life  Guards,  Chief 
Justice  of  Eyre  south  of  Trent,  and  Chancellor  of  the  Uni 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  195 

versity  of  Camoridge.  Nor  did  he  appear  to  the  public  un- 
worthy of  his  high  fortunes.  His  countenance  was  eminently 
tandsome  and  engaging,  his  temper  sweet,  his  manners  polite 
and  affable.  Though  a  libertine,  he  won  the  hearts  of  the 
Puritans.  Though  he  was  known  to  have  been  privy  to  the 
shameful  attack  on  Sir  John  Coventry,  he  easily  obtained  the 
forgiveness  of  the  country  party.  Even  austere  moralists 
owned  that,  in  such  a  court,  strict  conjugal  fidelity  was  scarcely 
to  be  expected  from  one  who,  while  a  child,  had  been  married 
to  another  child.  Even  patriots  were  willing  to  excuse  a 
headstrong  boy  for  visiting  with  immoderate  vengeance  an 
insult  offered  to  his  father.  And  soon  the  stain  left  by  loose 
amours  and  midnight  brawls  was  effaced  by  honorable  exploits. 
When  Charles  and  Lewis  united  their  forces  against  Holland, 
Monmouth  commanded  the  English  auxiliaries  who  were  sent 
to  the  Continent,  and  approved  himself  a  gallant  soldier,  and 
a  not  unintelligent  officer.  On  his  return,  he  found  himself 
the  most  popular  man  in  the  kingdom.  Nothing  was  withheld 
from  him  but  the  crown ;  nor  did  even  the  crown  seem  to  be 
absolutely  beyond  his  reach.  The  distinction  which  had  most 
injudiciously  been  made  between  him  and  the  highest  nobles 
had  produced  evil  consequences.  When  a  boy,  he  had  been 
invited  to  put  on  his  hat  in  the  presence  chamber,  while  How- 
ards and  Seymours  stood  uncovered  round  him.  When  for- 
eign princes  died,  he  had  mourned  for  thsm  in  the  long  purple 
cloak,  which  no  other  subject,  except  the  Duke  of  York  and 
Prince  Rupert,  was  permitted  to  wear.  It  was  natural  that 
these  things  should  lead  him  to  regard  himself  as  a  legitimate 
prince  of  the  House  of  Stuart.  Charles,  even  at  a  ripe  age, 
was  devoted  to  his  pleasures  and  regardless  of  his  dignity.  It 
could  hardly  be  thought  incredible  that  he  should  at  twenty 
have  gone  through  the  form  of  espousing  a  lady  whose  beauty 
had  fascinated  him,  and  who  was  not  to  be  won  on  easier  terms 
While  Monmouth  was  still  a  child,  and  while  the  Duke  of  York 
still  passed  for  a  Protestant,  it  was  rumored  throughout  the 
country,  and  even  in  circles  which  ought  to  have  been  well  in- 
formed, that  the  king  had  made  Lucy  Walters  his  wife,  and 
that,  if  every  one  had  his  right,  her  son  would  be  Prince  of 
Wales.  Much  was  said  of  a  certain  black  box,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  vulgar  belief,  contained  the  contract  of  marriage. 
When  Monmouth  had  returned  from  the  Low  Countries  with 
a  high  character  for  valor  and  conduct,  and  when  the  Duke 
of  York  was  known  to  be  a  member  of  a  church  detested  by 


196  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  great  majority  of  the  nation  this  idle  story  became  im- 
portant. For  it  there  was  not  the  slightest  evidence.  Against 
it  there  was  the  solemn  asseveration  of  the  king,  made  before 
his  council,  and  by  his  order  communicated  to  his  people. 
But  the  multitude,  always  fond  of  romantic  adventures,  drank 
in  eagerly  the  tale  of  the  secret  espousals  and  the  black  box. 
Some  chiefs  of  the  opposition  acted  on  this  occasion  as  they 
acted  with  respect  to  the  more  odious  fable  of  Gates,  and 
countenanced  a  story  which  they  must  have  despised.  The 
interest  which  the  populace  took  in  him  whom  they  regarded 
as  the  champion  of  the  true  religion,  and  the  rightful  heir  of 
the  British  throne,  was  kept  up  by  every  artifice.  When 
Monmouth  arrived  in  London  at  midnight,  the  watchmen  were 
ordered  by  the  magistrates  to  proclaim  the  joyful  event  through 
the  streets  of  the  city ;  the  people  left  their  beds ;  bonfires 
were  lighted  ;  the  windows  were  illuminated  ;  the  churches 
were  opened ;  and  a  merry  peal  rose  from  all  the  steeples. 
When  he  travelled,  he  was  every  where  received  with  not  less 
pomp,  and  with  far  more  enthusiasm,  than  had  been  displayed 
when  kings  had  made  progresses  through  the  realm.  He  was 
escorted  from  mansion  to  mansion  by  long  cavalcades  of 
armed  gentlemen  and  yeomen.  Cities  poured  forth  their  whole 
population  to  receive  him.  Electors  thronged  round  him,  to 
assure  him  that  their  votes  were  at  his  disposal.  To  such  a 
height  were  his  pretensions  carried,  that  he  not  only  exhibited 
on  his  escutcheon  the  lions  of  England  and  the  lilies  of  France 
without  the  baton  sinister  under  which,  according  to  the  law 
of  heraldry,  they  were  debruised  in  token  of  his  illegitimate 
birth,  but  ventured  to  touch  for  the  king's  evil.  At  tl)e  same 
time,  he  neglected  no  art  of  condescension  by  which  the  love 
of  the  multitude  could  be  conciliated.  He  stood  godfather  to 
the  children  of  the  peasantry,  mingled  in  every  rustic  sport, 
wrestled,  played  at  quarter-staff,  and  won  foot-races  in  his 
boots  against  fleet  runners  in  shoes. 

It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that,  at  two  of  the  greatest 
conjunctures  in  our  history,  the  chiefs  of  the  Protestant  party 
should  have  committed  the  same  error,  and  should  by  that 
error  have  greatly  endangered  their  country  and  their  religion. 
At  the  death  of  Edward  the  Sixth,  they  set  up  the  Lady  Jane, 
without  any  show  of  birthright,  in  opposition,  not  only  to  their 
enemy  Mary,  but  also  to  Elizabeth,  the  true  hope  of  England 
and  of  the  Reformation.  Thus  the  most  respectable  Protes- 
,  with  Elizabeth  at  their  head,  were  forced  to  make  com- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  197 

mon  cause  with  the  Papists.  In  the  same  manner,  a  nundred 
and  thirty  years  later,  a  part  of  the  opposition,  by  setting  up 
Monmouth  as  a  claimant  of  the  crown,  attacked  the  rights 
not  only  of  James,  whom  they  justly  regarded  as  an  implaca- 
ble enemy  of  their  faith  and  their  liberties,  but  also  of  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange,  who  were  eminently  marked 
out,  both  by  situation  and  by  personal  qualities,  as  the  defend 
ers  of  all  free  governments  and  of  all  reformed  churches. 

In  a  few  years  the  folly  of  this  course  became  manifest. 
.\t  present  the  popularity  of  Monmouth  constituted  a  great 
part  of  the  strength  of  the  opposition.  The  elections  went 
against  the  court ;  the  day  fixed  for  the  meeting  of  the  Houses 
drew  near ;  and  it  was  necessary  that  the  king  should  de- 
termine on  some  line  of  conduct.  Those  who  advised  him 
discerned  the  first  faint  signs  of  a  change  of  public  feeling, 
and  hoped  that,  by  merely  postponing  the  conflict,  he  would 
be  able  to  secure  the  victory.  He  therefore,  without  even 
asking  the  advice  of  the  council  of  the  thirty,  resolved  to  pro- 
rogue the  new  parliament  before  it  entered  on  business.  At  the 
same  time  the  Duke  of  York,  who  had  returned  from  Brussels, 
was  ordered  to  retire  to  Scotland,  and  was  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  administration  of  that  kingdom. 

Temple's  plan  of  government  was  now  avowedly  abandoned 
and  very  soon  forgotten.  The  privy  council  again  became 
what  it  had  been.  Shaftesbury  and  those  who  were  con- 
nected with  him  in  politics  resigned  their  seats.  Temple 
himself,  as  was  his  wont  in  unquiet  times,  retired  to  his  garden 
and  his  library.  Essex  quitted  the  board  of  Treasury,  and 
cast  in  his  lot  with  the  opposition.  But  Halifax,  disgusted 
and  alarmed  by  the  violence  of  his  old  associates,  and  Sun- 
derland,  who  never  quitted  place  while  he  could  hold  it, 
remained  in  the  king's  service. 

In  consequence  of  the  resignations  which  took  place  at 
this  conjuncture,  the  way  to  greatness  was  left  clear  to  a  new 
set  of  aspirants.  Two  statesmen,  who  subsequently  rose  to 
the  highest  eminence  which  a  British  subject  can  reach,  soon 
began  to  attract  a  large  share  of  the  public  attention.  These 
were  Lawrence  Hyde  and  Sidney  Godolphin. 

Lawrence  Hyde  was  the  second  son  of  the  Chancellor  Clar- 
endon, and  was  brother  of  the  first  Duchess  of  York.  He 
had  excellent  parts,  which  had  been  improved  by  parliamen- 
ary  and  diplomatic  experience  ;  but  the  infirmities  of  his 
temper  detracted  much  from  the  effective  strength  of  his 
17* 


198  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

abilities  Negotiator  and  courtier  as  he  was,  he  never  learned 
the  art  of  governing  or  of  concealing  his  emotions.  When 
prosperous,  he  was  insolent  and  boastful ;  when  he  sustained 
a  check,  his  undisguised  mortification  doubled  the  triumph 
of  his  enemies ;  very  slight  provocations  sufficed  to  kindle  his 
anger ;  and  when  he  was  angry  he  said  bitter  things  which 
he  forgot  as  soon  as  he  was  pacified,  but  which  others 
remembered  many  years.  His  quickness  and  penetration 
would  have  made  him  a  consummate  man  of  business  but 
for  his  self-sufficiency  and  impatience.  His  writings  prove 
that  he  had  many  of  the  qualities  of  an  orator ;  but  his 
irritability  prevented  him  from  doing  himself  justice  in 
debate  ;  for  nothing  was  easier  than  to  goad  him  into  a 
passion;  and,  from  the  moment  when  he  went  into  a  pas- 
sion, he  was  at  the  mercy  of  opponents  far  inferior  to  him  in 
capacity. 

Unlike  most  of  the  leading  politicians  of  that  generation 
he  was  a  consistent,  dogged,  and  rancorous  party  man,  a 
Cavalier  of  the  old  school,  a  zealous  champion  of  the  crown 
and  of  the  church,  and  a  hater  of  republicans  and  noncon- 
formists. He  had  consequently  a  great  body  of  personal 
adherents.  The  clergy  especially  looked  on  him  as  theii 
own  man,  and  extended  to  his  foibles  an  indulgence  of  which, 
to  say  the  truth,  he  stood  in  some  need  ;  for  lie  drank  deep  ; 
and  when  he  was  in  a  rage,  —  and  he  very  often  was  in  a 
rage, —  he  swore  like  a  porter. 

He  now  succeeded  Essex  at  the  Treasury.  It  is  to  be 
observed  that  the  place  of  first  lord  of  the  Treasury  had  not 
then  the  importance  and  dignity  which  now  belong  to  it. 
When  there  was  a  lord  treasurer,  that  great  officer  was  gen- 
erally prime  minister ;  but,  when  the  white  staff  was  in 
commission,  the  chief  commissioner  did  not  rank  so  high  as 
a  secretary  of  state.  It  was  not  till  the  time  of  Wai  pole  that 
the  first  lord  of  the  Treasury  was  considered  as  the  head  of 
the  executive  government. 

Godolphin  had  been  bred  a  page  at  Whitehall,  and  had 
early  acquired  all  the  flexibility  and  the  self-possession  of  a 
veteran  courtier.  He  was  laborious,  clear-headed,  and  pro- 
foundly versed  in  the  details  of  finance.  Every  government, 
therefore,  found  him  a  useful  servant ;  and  there  was  noth- 
ing in  his  opinions  or  in  his  character  which  could  prevent 
him  from  serving  any  government.  "  Sidney  Godolphin," 
said  Charles,  "  is  never  in  the  way,  and  never  out  of  the 


HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND.  199 

way."  This  pointed  remark  goes  far  to  explain  Godolphin'a 
extraordinary  success  in  life. 

He  acted  at  different  times  with  both  the  great  political 
parties ;  but  he  never  shared  in  the  passions  of  either.  Like 
most  men  of  cautious  tempers  and  prosperous  fortunes,  he 
had  a  strong  disposition  to  support  whatever  existed.  He 
disliked  revolutions ;  and  for  the  same  reason  for  which  he 
disliked  revolutions,  he  disliked  counter-revolutions.  His 
deportment  was  remarkably  grave  and  reserved ;  but  his  per- 
sonal tastes  were  low  and  frivolous ;  and  most  of  the  time 
which  he  could  save  from  public  business  was  spent  in  racing, 
card-playing,  and  cock-fighting.  He  now  sate  below  Roch- 
ester at  the  Board  of  Treasury,  and  distinguished  himself 
there  by  assiduity  and  intelligence. 

Before  the  new  parliament  was  suffered  to  meet  for  de- 
spatch of  business,  a  whole  year  elapsed,  an  eventful  year, 
which  has  left  lasting  traces  in  our  manners  and  language. 
Never  before  had  political  controversy  been  carried  on  with 
so  much  freedom.  Never  before  had  political  clubs  existed 
with  so  elaborate  an  organization,  or  so  formidable  an  influ- 
ence. The  one  question  of  the  exclusion  occupied  the  public 
mind.  All  the  presses  and  pulpits  of  the  realm  took  part  in 
the  conflict.  On  one  side  it  was  maintained  that  the  constitu- 
tion and  religion  of  the  state  would  never  be  secure  under  a 
Popish  king  ;  on  the  other,  that  the  right  of  James  to  wear 
the  crown  in  his  turn  was  derived  from  God,  and  could  not 
be  annulled,  even  by  the  consent  of  all  the  branches  of  the 
legislature.  Every  county,  every  town,  every  family,  was  in 
agitation.  The  civilities  and  hospitalities  of  neighborhood 
were  interrupted.  The  dearest  ties  of  friendship  and  of 
blood  were  sundered.  Even  schoolboys  were  divided  into 
angry  parties ;  and  the  Duke  of  York  and  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury  had  zealous  adherents  on  all  the  forms  of  West- 
minster and  Eaton.  The  theatres  shook  with  the  roar  of  the 
contending  factions.  Pope  Joan  'was  brought  on  the  stage  by 
the  zealous  Protestants.  Pensioned  poets  filled  their  pro- 
logues and  epilogues  with  eulogies  on  the  king  and  the  duke. 
The  malcontents  besieged  the  throne  with  petitions,  demand- 
ing that  parliament  might  be  forthwith  convened.  The 
loyalists  sent  up  addresses,  expressing  the  utmost  abhorrence 
of  all  who  presumed  to  dictate  to  the  sovereign.  The  citi- 
zens of  London  assembled  by  tens  of  thousands  to  burn  the 
pope  in  effigy.  The  government  posted  cavalry  at  Temple 


200  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Bar,  and  placed  ordnance  round  Whitehall.  In  that  year  our 
tongue  was  enriched  with  two  words,  Mob  and  Sham,  remark- 
able memorials  of  a  season  of  tumult  and  imposture  * 
Opponents  of  the  court  were  called  Birminghams,  petitioners 
and  exclusionists.  Those  who  took  the  king's  side  were 
Anti-Birminghams,  abhorrers,  and  tantivies.  These  appella- 
tions i  soon  became  obsolete  ;  but  at  this  time  were  first  heard 
two  nicknames  which,  though  originally  given  in  insult,  were 
soon  assumed  with  pride,  which  are  still  in  daily  use,  which 
have  spread  as  widely  as  the  English  race,  and  which  will 
last  as  long  as  the  English  literature.  It  is  a  curious  cir 
cumstance  that  one  of  these  nicknames  was  of  Scotch,  and 
the  other  of  Irish  origin.  Both  in  Scotland  and  in  Ireland 
misgovernment  had  called  into  existence  bands  of  desperate 
men  whose  ferocity  was  heightened  by  religious  enthusiasm. 
In  Scotland,  some  of  the  persecuted  Covenanters,  driven  mad 
by  oppression,  had  lately  murdered  the  primate,  had  taken 
arms  against  the  government,  had  obtained  some  advantages 
against  the  king's  forces,  and  had  not  been  put  down  till 
Monmouth,  at  the  head  of  some  troops  from  England,  had 
routed  them  at  Bothwell  Bridge.  These  zealots  were  most 
numerous  among  the  rustics  of  the  western  lowlands,  who 
were  vulgarly  called  Whigs.  Thus  the  appellation  of  Whig 
was  fastened  on  the  Presbyterian  zealots  of  Scotland,  and 
was  transferred  to  those  English  politicians  who  showed  a 
disposition  to  oppose  the  court,  and  to  treat  Protestant  Non- 
conformists with  indulgence.  The  bogs  of  Ireland,  at  the 
same  time,  afforded  a  refuge  to  Popish  outlaws,  much  resem- 
bling those  who  were  afterwards  known  as  Whiteboys.  These 
men  were  then  called  Tories.  The  name  of  Tory  was  there- 
fore given  to  Englishmen  who  refused  to  concur  in  excluding 
a  Roman  Catholic  prince  from  the  throne. 

The  rage  of  the  hostile  factions  would  have  been  suffi- 
ciently violent,  if  it  had  been  left  to  itself.  But  it  was  studi- 
ously exasperated  by  the  common  enemy  of  both.  Lewis 
still  continued  to  bribe  and  flatter  both  court  and  opposition. 
He  exhorted  Charles  to  be  firm  ;  he  exhorted  James  to  raise  a 
civil  war  in  Scotland  ;  he  exhorted  the  Whigs  not  to  flinch,  and 
to  rely  with  confidence  on  the  protection  of  France. 

Through  all  this  agitation  a  discerning  eye  might  have 
perceived  that  the  public  opinion  was  gradually  changing 

»  North's  Examen,  231,  574. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  201 

The  persecution  of  the  Roman  Catholics  went  on ;  but  con- 
victions were  no  longer  matters  of  course.  A  new  brood  of 
false  witnesses,  among  whom  a  villain  named  Dangerfield 
was  the  most  conspicuous,  infested  the  courts ;  but  the  stories 
of  these  men,  though  better  constructed  than  that  of  Gates, 
found  less  credit.  Juries  were  no  longer  so  easy  of  belief  as 
during  the  panic  which  had  followed  the  murder  of  Godfrey ; 
and  judges,  who,  while  the  popular  frenzy  was  at  the  height, 
had  been  its  most  obsequious  instruments,  now  ventured  to 
express  some  part  of  what  they  had  from  the  first  thought. 

At  length,  in  October,  1680,  the  parliament  met.  The 
Whigs  had  so  great  a  majority  in  the  Commons,  that  the  Ex- 
clusion Bill  went  through  all  its  stages  there  without  difficulty. 
The  king  scarcely  knew  on  what  members  of  his  own  cabinet 
he  could  reckon.  Hyde  had  been  true  to  his  Tory  opinions, 
and  had  steadily  supported  the  cause  of  hereditary  monarchy. 
But  Godolphin,  anxious  for  quiet,  and  believing  that  quiet 
could  be  restored  only  by  concession,  wished  the  bill  to  pass. 
Sunderland,  ever  false  and  ever  short-sighted,  unable  to  dis- 
cern the  signs  of  approaching  reaction,  and  anxious  to  concil- 
iate the  party  which  he  believed  to  be  irresistible,  determined 
to  vote  against  the  court.  The  Duchess  of  Portsmouth  im- 
plored her  royal  lover  not  to  rush  headlong  to  destruction.  If 
there  were  any  point  on  which  he  had  a  scruple  of  conscience 
or  of  honor,  it  was  the  question  of  the  succession  ;  but  during 
some  days  it  seemed  that  he  would  submit.  He  wavered, 
asked  what  sum  the  Commons  would  give  him  if  he  yielded, 
and  suffered  a  negotiation  to  be  opened  with  the  leading 
Whigs.  But  a  deep  mutual  distrust  which  had  been  many 
years  growing,  and  which  had  been  carefully  nursed  by  the 
arts  of  France,  made  a  treaty  impossible.  Neither  side  would 
place  confidence  in  the  other.  The  whole  nation  now  looked 
with  breathless  anxiety  to  the  House  of  Lords.  The  assem 
blage  of  peers  was  large.  The  king  himself  was  present 
The  debate  was  long,  earnest,  and  occasionally  furious.  Some 
hands  were  laid  -on  the  pommels  of  swords,  in  a  manner  which 
revived  the  recollection  of  the  stormy  parliaments  of  Henry 
the  Third  and  Richard  the  Second.  Shaftesbury  and  Essex 
were  joined  by  the  treacherous  Sunderland.  But  the  genius 
of  Halifax  bore  down  all  opposition.  Deserted  by  his  most 
important  colleagues,  and  opposed  to  a  crowd  of  able  antago- 
nists, he  defended  the  cause  of  the  Duke  of  York,  in  a  succes- 
sion of  speeches  which,  many  years  later,  were  remembered 

17* 


202  HISTORY    OK    ENGLAND. 

as  masterpieces  of  reasoning,  of  wit,  and  of  eloquence.  It  is 
seldom  that  oratory  changes  votes.  Yet  the  atfestation  of  con- 
temporaries leaves  no  doubt  that,  on  this  occasion,  votes  were 
changed  by  the  oratory  of  Halifax.  The  bishops,  true  to  their 
doctrines,  supported  the  principle  of  hereditary  right,  and  the 
bill  was  rejected  by  a  great  majority.* 

The  party  which  preponderated  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
bitterly  mortified  by  this  defeat,  found  some  consolation  in 
shedding  the  blood  of  Roman  Catholics.  William  Howard, 
Viscount  Stafford,  one  of  the  unhappy  men  who  had  been 
accused  of  a  share  in  the  plot,  was  brought  before  the  bar  of 
his  peers ;  and  on  the  testimony  of  Gates  and  of  two  other 
false  witnesses,  Dugdale  and  Turberville,  was  found  guilty  of 
high  treason,  and  suffered  death.  But  the  circumstances  of 
his  trial  and  execution  ought  to  have  given  a  useful  warning 
to  the  Whig  leaders.  A  large  and  respectable  minority  of  the 
House  of  Lords  pronounced  the  prisoner  not  guilty.  The 
multitude,  which  a  few  months  before  had  received  the  dying 
declarations  of  Oates's  victims  with  mockeiy  and  execrations, 
now  loudly  expressed  a  belief  that  Stafford  was  a  murdered 
man.  When  he  with  his  last  breath  protested  his  innocence, 
the  cry  was, "  God  bless  you,  rny  lord  !  We  believe  you,  my 
lord."  A  judicious  observer  might  easily  have  predicted  that 
the  blood  then  shed  would  shortly  have  blood. 

The  king  determined  to  try  once  more  the  experiment  of  a 
dissolution.  A  new  parliament  was  summoned  to  meet  al  Ox 
ford,  in  March,  1681.  Since  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets  the 

*  A  peer,  who  was  present,  ha?  described  the  effect  of  Halifax's  ora- 
tory in  words  which  I  will  quote,  because,  though  they  have  been  long 
in  print,  they  are  probably  known  to  few  even  of  the  most  curious 
and  diligent  readers  of  history. 

"  Of  powerful  eloquence  and  great  parts  were  the  duke's  enemies 
who  did  assert  the  bill ;  but  a  noble  lord  appeared  against  it  who, 
that  day,  in  all  the  force  of  speech,  in  reason,  in  arguments  of  what 
could  concern  the  public  or  the  private  interests  oT  men,  in  honor, 
in  conscience,  in  estate,  did  outdo  himself  and  every  other  man  ;  and 
in  fine  his  conduct  and  his  parts  were  both  victorious,  and  by  him  all 
the  wit  and  malice  of  that  party  was  overthrown." 

This  passage  is  taken  from  a  memoir  of  Henry  Earl  of  Peter- 
borough, in  a  volume  entitled  "Succinct  Genealogies,  by  Robert 
Halstead,"  fol.  1685.  The  name  of  Halstead  is  fictitious.  The  real 
authors  were  the  Earl  of  Peterborough  himself  and  his  chaplain. 
The  book  is  extremely  rare.  Only  1;wenty-four  copies  were  printed, 
two  of  which  are  now  in  the  British  Museum.  Of  these  two  on« 
belonged  to  George  the  Fourth,  and  the  other  to  Mr.  Grcnville. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  203 

Houses  had  constantly  sate  at  Westminster,  except  when  the 
plague  was  raging  in  the  capital .  but  so  extraordinary  a  con- 
juncture seemed  to  require  extraordinary  precautions.  If  the 
parliament  were  held  in  its  usual  place  of  assembling,  the 
House  of  Commons  might  declare  itself  permanent,  and  might 
call  for  aid  on  the  magistrates  and  citizens  of  London.  The 
trainbands  might  rise  to  defend  Shaftesbury,  as  they  had  risen 
forty  years  before  to  defend  Pym  and  Hampden.  The  guards 
might  be  overpowered,  the  palace  forced,  the  king  a  prisoner 
in  the  hands  of  his  mutinous  subjects.  At  Oxford  there  was 
no  such  danger.  The  university  was  devoted  to  the  crown  ; 
and  the  gentry  of  the  neighborhood  were  generally  Tories. 
Heie,  therefore,  the  opposition  had  more  reason  than  the  king 
to  apprehend  violence. 

The  elections  were  sharply  contested.  The  Whigs  still 
composed  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons ;  but  it  was 
plain  that  the  Tory  spirit  was  fast  rising  throughout  the  coun- 
try. It  should  seem  that  the  sagacious  and  versatile  Shaftes- 
bury ought  to  have  foreseen  the  coming  change,  and  to  have 
consented  to  the  compromise  which  the  court  offered  :  but  he 
appears  to  have  utterly  forgotten  his  old  tactics.  Instead  of 
making  dispositions  which,  in  the  worst  event,  would  have  se- 
cured his  retreat,  he  took  up  a  position  in  which  it  was  neces- 
sary that  he  should  either  conquer  or  perish.  Perhaps  his 
head,  strong  as  it  was,  had  been  turned  by  popularity,  by 
success,  and  by  the  excitement  of  conflict.  Perhaps  he  had 
spurred  his  party  till  he  could  no  longer  curb  it,  and  was  realiy 
hurried  on  headlong  by  those  whom  he  seemed  to  guide. 

The  eventful  day  arrived.  The  meeting  at  Oxford  resem- 
bled rather  that  of  a  Polish  diet  than  that  of  an  English  par- 
liament. The  Whig  members  were  escorted  by  great  numbers 
of  their  armed  and  mounted  tenants  and  serving  men,  who 
exchanged  looks  of  defiance  with  the  royal  guards.  The 
slightest  provocation  might,  under  such  circumstances,  have 
produced  a  civil  war ;  but  neither  side  dared  to  strike  the  first 
blow.  The  king  again  offered  to  consent  to  any  thing  but  the 
Exe4usion  Bill.  The  Commons  were  determined  to  accept 
nothing  but  the  Exclusion  Bill.  In  a  few  days  the  parliament 
was  again  dissolved. 

The  king  had  triumphed.  The  reaction,  which  had  begun 
some  months  before  the  meeting  of  the  Houses  at  Oxford,  now 
went  rapidly  on.  The  nation,  indeed,  was  still  hostile  to  Popery  ; 
but,  when  men  reviewed  the  whole  history  of  the  plot  they 


204  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

felt  that  their  Protestant  zeal  had  hurried  them  into  folly  and 
crime,  and  could  scarcely  believe  that  they  had  been  induced 
by  nursery  tales  to  clamor  for  the  blood  of  fellow-subjects  and 
fellow-Christians.  The  most  loyal,  indeed,  could  not  deny 
that  the  administration  of  Charles  had  often  been  highly 
blamable.  But  men  who  had  not  the  full  information  which 
we  possess  touching  his  dealings  with  France,  and  who  were 
disgusted  by  the  violence  of  the  Whigs,  enumerated  the  large 
concessions  which,  during  the  last  few  years,  he  had  made  to 
his  parliaments,  and  the  still  larger  concessions  which  he  had 
declared  himself  willing  to  make.  He  had  consented  to  the 
laws  which  excluded  Roman  Catholics  from  the  House  of  Lords, 
from  the  privy  council,  and  from  all  civil  and  military  offices. 
He  had  passed  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  If  securities  yet 
stronger  had  not  been  provided  against  the  dangers  to  which  the 
constitution  and  the  church  might  be  exposed  under  a  Roman 
Catholic  sovereign,  the  fault  lay  not  with  Charles,  who  had  in- 
vited the  parliament  to  propose  such  securities,  but  with  those 
Whigs  who  had  refused  to  hear  of  any  substitute  for  the  Ex- 
clusion Bill.  One  thing  only  had  the  king  denied  to  his  people. 
He  had  refused  to  take  away  his  brother's  birthright.  And 
was  there  not  good  reason  to  believe  that  this  refusal  was 
prompted  by  laudable  feelings  ?  What  selfish  motive  could 
faction  itself  impute  to  the  royal  mind  ?  The  Exclusion  Bill 
did  not  curtail  the  reigning  king's  prerogatives,  or  diminish  his 
income.  Indeed,  by  passing  it,  he  might  easily  have  obtained 
an  ample  addition  to  his  own  revenue.  And  what  was  it  to 
him  who  ruled  after  him  ?  Nay,  if  he  had  personal  predilec- 
tions, they  were  known  to  be  rather  in  favor  of  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth  than  of  the  Duke  of  York.  The  most  natural  expla- 
nation of  the  king's  conduct  therefore  seemed  to  be  that, 
careless  as  was  his  temper,  and  loose  as  were  his  morals,  he 
had,  on  this  occasion,  acted  from  a  sense  of  duty  and  honor. 
And,  if  so,  would  the  nation  compel  him  to  do  what  he  thought 
criminal  and  disgraceful  ?  __  To  apply,  even  by  strictly  consti- 
tutional means,  a  violent  pressure  to  his  conscience,  seemed  to 
zealous  Royalists  ungenerous  andundutiful.  But  strictly  con- 
stitutional means  were  not  the  only  means  which  the  Whigs 
were  disposed  to  employ.  Signs  were  already  discernible 
which  portended  the  approach  of  civil  war.  Men  who  in  the 
time  of  the  civil  war  and  of  the  Commonwealth  had  acquired 
an  odious  notoriety,  had  emerged  from  the  obscurity  in  which, 
after  the  Restoration,  they  had  hidden  themselves  from  the 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  205 

general  hatred,  showed  their  confident  and  busy  faces  every 
where,  and  appeared  to  anticipate  a  second  reign  of  the  saints. 
Another  Naseby,  another  High  Court  of  Justice,  another 
Commonwealth,  another  usurper  on  the  throne,  the  Lords 
again  ejected  from  their  hall  by  violence,  the  universities 
again-  purged,  the  Church  again  robbed  and  persecuted,  the 
Puritans  again  dominant,  —  to  such  results  did  the  desperate 
policy  of  the  opposition  seem  to  tend. 

Animated  by  such  feelings,  the  majority  of  the  upper  and 
middle  classes  hastened  to  rally  round  the  throne.  The  situ- 
ation of  the  king  bore,  at  this  time,  a  great  resemblance  to 
that  in  which  his  father  stood  just  after  the  grand  remonstrance 
had  been  voted.  But  the  reaction  of  1641  had  not  been  suf- 
fered to  run  its  course.  Charles  the  First,  at  the  very  moment 
when  his  people,  long  estranged,  were  returning  to  him  with 
hearts  disposed  to  reconciliation,  had,  by  a  perfidious  viola- 
tion of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  realm,  forfeited  their 
confidence  forever.  Had  Charles  the  Second  taken  a  similar 
course,  had  he  arrested  the  Whig  leaders  in  an  irregular  man- 
ner, and  impeached  them  of  high  treason  before  a  tribunal 
which  had  no  legal  jurisdiction  over  them,  it  is  highly  proba- 
ble that  they  would  speedily  have  regained  the  ascendency 
which  they  had  lost.  Fortunately  for  himself  he  was  induced, 
at  this  crisis,  to  adopt  a  policy  which,  for  his  ends,  was  singu- 
larly judicious.  He  determined  to  conform  to  the  law,  but 
at  the  same  time  to  make  vigorous  and  unsparing  use  of  the 
law  against  his  adversaries.  He  was  not  bound  to  convoke  a 
parliament  till  three  years  should  have  elapsed.  He  was  not 
much  distressed  for  money.  The  produce  of  the  taxes  which 
had  been  settled  on  him  for  life  exceeded  the  estimate.  He 
was  at  peace  with  all  the  world.  He  could  retrench  his  ex- 
penses by  giving  up  the  costly  and  useless  settlement  of  Tan- 
gier; and  he  might  hope  for  pecuniary  aid  from  France. 
He  had,  therefore,  ample  time  and  means  for  a.  systematic 
attack  on  the  opposition  under  the  forms  of  the  constitution. 
The  judges  were  removable  at  his  pleasure  ;  the  juries  were 
nominated  by  the  sheriffs  ;  and  in  almost  all  the  counties  of 
England,  the  sheriffs  were  nominated  by  himself.  Witnesses, 
of  the  same  class  with  those  who  had  recently  sworn  away  the 
lives  of  Papists,  were  ready  to  swear  away  the  lives  of  Whigs. 

The  first  victim  was  College,  a  noisy  and  violent  dema- 
gogue of  mean  birth  and   education.     He  was   by  trade  a 
joiner,  and  was  celebrated  as  the  inventor  of  the  Protestant 
VOL.  i.  18 


206  HISTOHY    OF    ENGLAND. 

flail.*  He  had  been  at  Oxford  when  the  parliament  sate  there, 
and  was  accused  of  having  planned  a  rising  and  an  attack  on 
the  king's  guards.  Evidence  was  given  against  him  by  Dugdale 
and  Turberville,  the  same  infamous  men  who  had,  a  few  months 
earlier,  borne  false  witness  against  Stafford.  In  the  sight  of  a 
jury  of  country  squires  no  exclusionist  was  likely  to  find 
favor.  College  was  convicted.  The  verdict  was  received  by 
the  crowd  which  filled  the  Court  House  of  Oxford  with  a  roar 
of  exultation,  as  barbarous  as  that  which  he  and  his  friends 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  raising  when  innocent  Papists  were 
doomed  to  the  gallows.  His  execution  was  the  beginning  of 
a  new  judicial  massacre,  not  less  atrocious  than  that  in  which 
he  had  himself  borne  a  share. 

The  government,  emboldened  by  this  first  victory,  now 
aimed  a  blow  at  an  enemy  of  a  very  different  class.  It  was 
resolved  that  Shaftesbury  should  be  brought  to  trial  for  his 
life.  Evidence  was  collected  which,  it  was  thought,  would 
support  a  charge  of  treason.  But  the  facts  which  it  was 
necessary  to  prove  were  alleged  to  have  been  committed  in 
London.  The  sheriffs  of  London,  chosen  by  the  citizens 
were  zealous  Whigs.  They  named  a  Whig  grand  jury,  which 
threw  out  the  bill.  This  defeat,  far  from  discouraging  those 
who  advised  the  king,  suggested  to  them  a  new  and  daring 
scheme.  Since  the  charter  of  the  capital  was  in  their  way, 
that  charter  must  be  annulled.  It  was  pretended,  therefore, 
that  the  city  of  London  had  by  some  irregularities  forfeited 
its  municipal  privileges ;  and  proceedings  were  instituted 
against  the  Corporation  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench.  At 
the  same  time  those  laws  which  had,  soon  after  the  Restora- 
tion, been  enacted  against  Nonconformists,  and  which  had 
remained  dormant  during  the  ascendency  of  the  Whigs,  were 
enforced  all  over  the  kingdom  with  extreme  rigor. 

Yet  the  spirit  of  the  Whigs  was  not  subdued.  Though  in 
evil  plight,  they  were  still  a  numerous  and  powerful  party , 
and,  as  they  mustered  strong  in  the  large  towns,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  capital,  they  made  a  noise  and  a  show,  more  than 
proportioned  to  their  real  force.  Animated  by  the  recollec- 
tion of  past  triumphs,  and  by  the  sense  of  present  oppression, 
they  overrated  both  their  strength  and  their  wrongs.  It  was 
not  in  their  power  to  make  out  that  clear  and  overwhelming 

*  This  is  mentioned  in  the  curious  work  entitled  "  Ragguaglio 
della  solenne  Comparsa  fatta  in  Roma  gli  otto  di  Gennaio,  1687, 
dalT  illustrissimo  et  eccellentissimo  signer  Conte  di  Castelmaine." 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  207 

case  which  can  alone  justify  so  violen.  a  remedy  as  resistance 
to  an  established  government.  Whatever  they  might  suspect, 
they  could  not  prove  that  their  sovereign  had  entered  into  a 
treaty  with  France  against  the  religion  and  liberties  of  Eng- 
land. What  was  apparent  was  not  sufficient  to  warrant  an 
appeal  to  the  sword.  If  the  Exclusion  Bill  had  been  thrown 
out,  it  had  been  thrown  out  by  the  Lords  in  the  exercise  of  a 
right  coeval  with  the  constitution.  If  the  king  had  dissolved 
the  Oxford  parliament,  he  had  done  so  by  virtue  of  a  prerog- 
ative which  had  never  been  questioned.  If  the  court  had, 
since  the  dissolution,  taken  some  harsh  measures,  still  those 
measures  were  in  strict  conformity  with  the  letter  of  the  law, 
and  with  the  recent  practice  of  the  malcontents  themselves. 
If  the  king  had  prosecuted  his  opponents,  he  had  prosecuted 
them  according  to  the  proper  forms,  and  before  the  proper 
tribunals.  The  evidence  now  produced  for  the  crown  wag  at 
least  as  worthy  of  credit  as  the  evidence  on  which  the  noblest 
blood  of  England  had  lately  been  shed  by  the  opposition. 
The  treatment  which  an  accused  Whig  had  now  to  expect 
from  judges,  advocates,  sheriffs,  juries,  and  spectators,  was  no 
worse  than  the  treatment  which  had  lately  been  thought  by 
the  Whigs  good  enough  for  an  accused  Papist.  If  the  priv- 
ileges of  the  city  of  London  were  attacked,  they  were  at- 
tacked, not  by  military  violence  or  by  any  disputable  exercise 
of  prerogative,  but  according  to  the  regular  practice  of  West- 
minster Hall.  No  law  was  suspended.  No  tax  was  imposed 
by  royal  authority.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  respected . 
Even  the  Test  Act  was  enforced.  The  opposition  therefore 
could  not  bring  home  to  the  king  that  species  of  misgovern- 
ment  which  alone  could  justify  insurrection.  And,  even  had 
his  misgovernment  been  more  flagrant  than  it  was,  insurrec- 
tion would  still  have  been  criminal,  because  it  was  almost 
certain  to  be  unsuccessful.  The  situation  of  the  Whigs  in 
1682  differed  widely  from  that  of  the  Roundheads  forty  years 
before.  Those  who  took  up  arms  against  Charles  the  First 
acted  under  the  authority  of  a  parliament  which  had  been 
legally  assembled,  and  whicn  could  not,  without  its  own  con- 
sent, be  legally  dissolved.  The  opponents  of  Charles  the  Sec- 
ond were  private  men.  Almost  all. the  military  and  naval  re- 
sources of  the  kingdom  had  been  at  the  disposal  of  those  who 
resisted  Charles  the  First.  All  the  military  and  naval  re- 
sources of  the  kingdom  were  at  the  disposal  of  Charles  the 
Second.  The  House  of  Commons  had  been  supported  by  at 
least  half  the  nation  against  Charles  the  First.  But  those  wb- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

were  disposed  to  levy  war  against  Charted  the  Second  were 
certainly  a  minority.  It  could  not  reasonably  be  doubted 
therefore,  that,  if  they  attempted  a  rising,  they  would  fail. 
Still  less  could  it  be  doubted  that  their  failure  would  aggravate 
every  evil  of  which  they  complained.  The  true  policy  of  the 
Whigs  was  to  submit  with  patience  to  adversity  which  was  the 
natural  consequence  and  the  just  punishment  of  their  errors, 
to  wait  patiently  for  that  turn  of  public  feeling  which  must 
inevitably  come,  to  observe  the  law,  and  to  avail  themselves 
of  the  protection,  imperfect  indeed,  but  by  no  means  nugatory, 
which  the  law  afforded  to  innocence.  Unhappily  they  took  a 
very  different  course.  Unscrupulous  and  hot-headed  chiefs 
of  the  party  formed  and  discussed  schemes  of  resistance,  and 
were  heard,  if  not  with  approbation,  yet  with  the  show  of  ac- 
quiescence, by  much  better  men  than  themselves.  It  was 
proposed  that  there  should  be  simultaneous  insurrections  in 
London,  in  Cheshire,  at  Bristol,  and  at  Newcastle.  Commu- 
nications were  opened  with  the  discontented  Presbyterians  of 
Scotland,  who  were  suffering  under  a  tyranny  such  as  Eng- 
land, in  the  worst  times,  had  never  known.  While  the  leaders 
of  the  opposition  thus  revolved  plans  of  open  rebellion,  but 
were  still  restrained  by  fears  or  scruples  from  taking  any  de- 
cisive step,  a  design  of  a  very  different  kind  was  meditated  by 
some  of  their  accomplices.  To  fierce  spirits,  unrestrained  by 
principle,  or  maddened  by  fanaticism,  it  seemed  that  to  waylay 
and  murder  the  king  and  his  brother  was  the  shortest  and 
surest  way  of  vindicating  the  Protestant  religion  and  the  lib- 
erties of  England.  A  place  and  time  were  named  ;  and  the 
details  of  the  butchery  were  frequently  discussed,  if  not  defin- 
itively arranged.  This  scheme  was  known  but  to  few,  and 
was  concealed  with  especial  care  from  the  upright  and  humane 
Russell,  and  from  Monmouth,  who,  though  not  a  man  of  deli- 
cate conscience,  would  have  recoiled  with  horror  from  the 
guilt  of  parricide.  Thus  there  were  two  plots,  one  within  the 
other.  The  object  of  the  great  Whig  plot  was  to  raise  the 
nation  in  arms  against  the  government.  The  lesser  plot, 
commonly  called  the  Rye  House  Plot,  in  which  only  a  few 
desperate  men  were  concerned,  had  for  its  object  the  assassi- 
nation of  the  king  and  of  the  heir  presumptive. 

Both  plots  were  soon  discovered.  Cowardly  traitors  has- 
tened to  save  themselves,  by  divulging  all,  and  more  than  all 
that  had  passed  in  the  deliberations  of  the  party.  That  only 
A  small  minority  of  those  who  meditated  resistance  had  admit- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

,.»id  into  their  minds  the  thought  of  assassination  is  fully  estab- 
lished :  but,  as  the  two  conspiracies  ran  into  each  other,  it  was 
not  difficult  for  the  government  to  confound  them  together. 
The  just  indignation  excited  by  the  Rye  House  Plot  wag 
extended  for  a  time  to  the  whole  Whig  body.  The  king  was 
now  at  liberty  to  exact  full  vengeance  for  years  of  restraint 
and  humiliation.  Shaftesbury,  indeed,  had  escaped  the  fate 
which  his  manifold  perfidy  had  well  deserved.  He  had  seen 
that  the  ruin  of  his  party  was  at  hand,  had  in  vain  endeavored 
to  make  his  peace  with  the  royal  brothers,  had  fled  to  Holland, 
and  had  died  there,  under  the  generous  protection  of  a  govern- 
ment which  he  had  cruelly  wronged.  Monmouth  threw  him- 
self at  his  father's  feet  and  found  mercy,  but  soon  gave  new 
offence,  and  thought  it  prudent  to  go  into  voluntary  exile. 
Essex  perished  by  his  own  hand  in  the  Tower.  Russell,  who 
appears  to  have  been  guilty  of  no  offence  falling  within  the 
definition  of  high  treason,  and  Sidney,  of  whose  guilt  no  legal 
evidence  could  be  produced,  were  beheaded  in  defiance  of  law 
and  justice.  Russell  died  with  the  fortitude  of  a  Christian, 
Sidney  with  the  fortitude  of  a  Stoic.  Some  active  politicians 
of  meaner  rank  were  sent  to  the  gallows.  Many  quitted  the 
country.  Numerous  prosecutions  for  misprision  of  treason, 
for  libel,  and  for  conspiracy  were  instituted.  Convictions 
were  obtained  without  difficulty  from  Tory  juries,  and  rigorous 
punishments  were  inflicted  by  courtly  judges.  With  these 
criminal  proceedings  were  joined  civil  proceedings  scarcely 
less  formidable.  Actions  were  brought  against  persons  who 
had  defamed  the  Duke  of  York ;  and  damages  tantamount  to 
a  sentence  of  perpetual  imprisonment  were  demanded  by  the 
plaintiff,  and  without  difficulty  obtained.  The  Court  of  King's 
Bench  pronounced  that  the  franchises  of  the  city  of  London 
were  forfeited  *o  the  crown.  Flushed  with  this  great  victory, 
the  government  proceeded  to  attack  the  constitutions  of  other 
corporations  which  were  governed  by  Whig  officers,  and- 
which  had  been  in  the  habit  of  returning  Whig  members  to 
parliament.  Borough  after  borough  was  compelled  to  surren- 
der its  privileges ;  and  nsw  charters  were  granted  which  gave 
the  ascendency  every  where  to  the  Tories. 

The'se  proceedings,  however  reprehensible,  had  yet  the 
semblance  of  legality.  They  were  also  accompanied  by  an 
act  intended  to  quiet  the  uneasiness  with  which  many  loyal 
men  looked  forward  to  the  accession  of  a  Popish  sovereign. 
The  Lady  Anne  younger  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  York  by 
18* 


210         -  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

his  first  wife,  was  married  to  George,  a  prince  of  the  orthodox 
House  of  Denmark.  The  Tory  gentry  and  clergy  might  now 
flatter  themselves  that  the  Church  of  England  had  been  effec- 
tually secured  without  any  violation  of  the  order  of  succession. 
The  king  and  his  heir  were  nearly  of  the  same  age.  Both 
were  approaching  the  decline  of  life.  The  king's  health  was 
good.  It  was  therefore  probable  that  James,  if  he  ever  came 
to  the  throne,  would  have  but  a  short  reign.  Beyond  his 
reign  there  was  the  gratifying  prospect  of  a  long  series  of 
Protestant  sovereigns. 

The  liberty  of  unlicensed  printing  was  of  little  or  no  use  to 
the  vanquished  party ;  for  the  temper  of  judges  and  juries 
was  such  that  no  writer  whom  the  government  prosecuted  for  a 
libel  had  any  chance  of  escaping.  The  dread  of  punishment 
therefore  did  all  that  a  censorship  could  have  done.  Mean- 
while, the  pulpits  resounded  with  harangues  against  the  sin  of 
rebellion.  The  treatises  in  which  Filmer  maintained  that  he- 
reditary despotism  was  the  form  of  government  ordained  by 
God,  and  that  limited  monarchy  was  a  pernicious  absurdity, 
had  recently  appeared,  and  had  been  favorably  received  by  a 
large  section  of  the  Tory  party.  The  University  of  Oxford, 
on  the  very  day  on  which  Russell  was  put  to  death,  adopted 
by  a  solemn  public  act  these  strange  doctrines,  and  ordered 
the  political  works  of  Buchanan,  Milton,  and  Baxter  to  be  pub- 
licly burned  in  the  court  of  the  Schools. 

Thus  emboldened,  the  king  at  length  ventured  to  overstep 
the  bounds  which  he  had  during  some  years  observed,  and  to 
violate  the  plain  letter  of  the  law.  The  law  was,  that  not  more 
than  three  years  should  pass  between  the  dissolving  of  one 
parliament  and  the  convoking  of  another.  But,  when  three 
years  had  elapsed  after  the  dissolution  of  the  parliament  which 
sate  at  Oxford,  no  writs  were  issued  for  an  election.  This 
infraction  of  the  constitution  was  the  more  reprehensible,  be 
cause  the  king  had  little  reason  to  fear  a  meeting  with  a  new 
House  of  Commons.  The  counties  were  generally  on  his 
side ;  and  many  boroughs  in  which  the  Whigs  had  lately  held 
sway  had  been  so  remodelled  that  they  were  certain  to  return 
none  but  courtiers. 

In  a  short  time  the  law  was  again  violated  in  order  to  grat- 
ify the  Duke  of  York.  That  prince  was,  partly  on  account  of 
his  religion,  and  partly  on  account  of  the  sternness  and  harsh- 
ness of  his  nature,  so  unpopular  that  it  had  been  thought  ne- 
cessary to  keep  him  out  of  sight  while  the  Exclusion  Bill  wa* 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  211 

before  parliament,  lest  his  public  Appearance  should  give  an 
advantage  to  the  party  which  was  struggling  to  deprive  him 
_of  his  birthright.  He  had  therefore  been  sent  to  govern  Scot 
land,  where  the  savage  old  tyrant  Lauderdale  was  sinking 
into  the  grave.  Even  Lauderdale  was  now  outdone.  The 
administration  of  James  was  marked  by  odious  laws,  by  bar- 
barous punishments,  and  by  judgments  to  the  iniquity  of  which 
even  that  age  furnished  no  parallel.  The  Scottish  Privy 
Council  had  power  to  put  state  prisoners  to  the  question.  But 
the  sight  was  so  dreadful  that,  as  soon  as  the  boots  appeared, 
even  the  most  servile  and  hard-hearted  courtiers  hastened  out 
of  the  chamber.  The  board  was  sometimes  quite  deserted ; 
and  it  was  at  length  found  necessary  to  make  an  order  that 
the  members  should  keep  their  seats  on  such  occasions.  The 
Duke  of  York,  it  was  remarked,  seemed  to  take  pleasure  in 
the  spectacle  which  some  of  the  worst  men  then  living  were 
unable  to  contemplate  without  pity  and  horror.  He  not  only 
came  to  council  when  the  torture  was  to  be  inflicted,  but 
watched  the  agonies  of  the  sufferers  with  that  sort  of  interest 
and  complacency  with  which  men  observe  a  curious  experi- 
ment in  science.  Thus  he  employed  himself  at  Edinburgh, 
ull  the  event  of  the  conflict  between  the  court  and  the  Whigs 
was  no  longer  doubtful.  He  then  returned  to  England  :  but 
ne  was  still  excluded  by  the1  Test  Act  from  all  public  employ- 
ment ;  nor  did  the  king  at  first  think  it  safe  to  violate  a  statute 
which  the  great  majority  of  his  most  loyal  subjects  regarded 
as  one  of  the  chief  securities  of  their  religion  and  of  their  civil 
rights.  When,  however,  it  appeared,  from  a  succession  of 
trials,  that  the  nation  had  patience  to  endure  almost  any  thing 
that  the  government  had  courage  to  do,  Charles  ventured  to 
dispense  with  the  law  in  his  brother's  favor.  The  duke  again 
took  his  seat  in  the  council,  and  resumed  the  direction  of  na- 
val affairs. 

These  breaches  of  the  constitution  excited,  it  is  true,  some 
murmurs  among  the  moderate  Tories,  and  were  not  unani- 
mously approved  even  by  the  king's  ministers.  Halifax,  in 
particular,  now  a  ^narquis  and  Lord  Privy  Seal,  had,  from  the 
very  day  on  which-  the  Tories  had  by  his  help  gained  the 
ascendant,  begun  to  turn  Whig.  As  soon  as  the  Exclusion 
Bill  had  been  thrown  out,  he  had  pressed  the  House  of  Lords 
to  make  provision  against  the  danger  to  which,  in  the  next 
reign,  the  liberties  and  religion  of  the  nation  might  be  exposed. 
He  now  saw  with  alarm  the  violence  of  that  reaction  which 


212  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

was,  in  no  small  measure,  his  own  work.  He  did  not  try  to 
conceal  the  scorn  which  he  felt  for  the  servile  doctrines  of 
the  University  of  Oxford.  He  detested  the  French  alliance. 
He  disapproved  of  the  long  intermission  of  parliaments.  He 
regretted  the  severity  with  which  the  vanquished  party  was 
treated.'  He  who,  when  the  Whigs  were  predominant,  had 
ventured  to  pronounce  Stafford  not  guilty,  ventured,  when  they 
were  vanquished  and  helpless,  to  intercede  for  Russell.  At 
one  of  the  last  councils  which  Charles  held,  a  remarkable 
scene  took  place.  The  charter  of  Massachusetts  had  been 
forfeited.  A  question  arose  how,  for  the  future,  the  colony 
shoutd  be  governed.  The  general  opinion  of  the  board  was, 
that  the  whole  power,  legislative  as  well  as  executive,  should 
abide  in  the  crown.  Halifax  took  the  opposite  side,  and 
argued  with  great  energy  against  absolute  monarchy,  and  in 
favor  of  representative  government.  It  was  vain,  he  said,  to 
think  that  a  population,  sprung  from  the  English  stock,  and 
animated  by  English  feelings,  would  long  bear  to  be  deprived 
of  English  institutions.  Life,  he  exclaimed,  would  not  be 
worth  having  in  a  country  where  liberty  and  property  were  at 
the  mercy  of  one  despotic  master.  The  Duke  of  York  was 
greatly  incensed  by  this  language,  and  represented  to  his 
brother  the  danger  of  retaining  in  office  a  man  who  appeared 
to  be  infected  with  all  the  worst  notions  of  Marvell  and  Sidney. 
Some  modern  writers  have  blamed  Halifax  for  continuing 
in  the  ministry  while  he  disapproved  of  the  manner  in  which 
both  domestic  and  foreign  affairs  were  conducted.  But  this 
censure  is  unjust.  Indeed,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  word 
ministry,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  use  it,  was  then  unknown.* 
The  thing  itself  did  not  exist ;  for  it  belongs  to  an  age  in  which 
parliamentary  government  is  fully  established.  At  present, 
the  chief  servants  of  the  crown  form  one  body.  They  are 
understood  to  be  on  terms  of  friendly  confidence  with  each 
other,  and  to  agree  as  to  the  main  principles  on  which  the 
executive  administration  ought  to  be  conducted.  If  a  slight 
difference  of  opinion  arises  among  them,  it  is  easily  compro- 
mised ;  but,  if  one  of  them  differs  from  the  rest  on  a  vital 
point,  it  is  his  duty  to  resign.  While  he  retains  his  office,  he 
is  held  responsible  even  for  steps  which  he  has  tried  to  dis- 
suade his  colleagues  from  taking.  In  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  heads  of  the  various  branches  of  the  administration  were 


*  North's  Examen,  69. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  213 

bound  together  in  no  such  partnership.  Each  of  them  was 
accountable  for  his  own  acts,  for  the  use  which  he  made  of  his 
own  official  seal,  for  the  documents  which  he  signed,  for  the 
counsel  which  he  gave  to  the  king.  No  statesman  was  held 
answerable  for  what  he  had  not  himself -done,  or  induced 
others  to  do.  If  he  took  care  not  to  be  the  agent  in  what  was 
wrong,  and  if,  when  consulted,  he  recommended  what  was 
right,  he  was  blameless.  It  would  have  been  thought  strange 
scrupulosity  in  him  to  quit  his  post,  because  his  advice  as  to 
matters  not  strictly  within  his  own  department  was  not  taken 
by  his  master  :  to  leave  the  board  of  Admiralty,  for  example, 
because  the  finances  were  in  disorder,  or  the  board  of  Treas- 
ury, because  the  foreign  relations  of  the  kingdom  were  in  an 
unsatisfactory  state.  It  was,  therefore,  by  no  means  unusual 
to  see  in  high  office,  at  the  same  time,  men  who  avowedly  dif- 
fered from  one  another  as  widely  as  ever  Pulteney  differed 
from  Walpole,  or  Fox  from  Pitt. 

The  moderate  and  constitutional  counsels  of  ^Halifax  were 
timidly  and  feebly  seconded  by  Francis  North,  Lord  Guild- 
ford,  who  had  lately  been  made  keeper  of  the  great  seal. 
The  character  of  Guildford  has  been  drawn  at  full  length  by 
his  brother,  Roger  North,  a  most  intolerant  Tory,  a  most 
affected  and  pedantic  writer,  but  a  vigilant  observer  of  all 
those  minute  circumstances  which  throw  light  on  the  disposi- 
tions of  men.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  biographer,  though  he 
wag  under  the  influence  of  the  strongest  fraternal  partiality, 
and  though  he  was  evidently  anxious  to  produce  a  flattering 
likeness,  was  yet  unable  to  portray  the  lord  keeper  otherwise 
than  as  the  most  ignoble  of  mankind.  Yet  the  intellect  of 
Guildford  was  clear,  his  industry  great,  his  proficiency  in 
letters  and  science  respectable,  and  his  legal  learning  more 
than  respectable.  His  faults  were  selfishness,  cowardice,  and 
meanness.  He  was  not  insensible  to  the  power  of  female 
beauty,  nor  averse  from  excess  in  wine.  Yet  neither  wine 
nor  beauty  could  ever  seduce  the  cautious  and  frugal  libertine, 
even  in  his  earliest  youth,  into  one  fit  of  indiscreet  generosity. 
Though  of  noble  descent,  he  rose  in  his  profession  by  paying 
ignominious  homage  to  all  who  possessed  influence  in  the 
courts.  He  became  chief  justice  of  the  Common  Pleas,  and 
as  such  was  party  to  some  of  the  foulest  judicial  murders  re- 
corded in  our  history.  He  had  sense  enough  to  perceive  from 
the  first  that  Gates  and  Bedloe  were  impostors  ;  but  the  parlia- 
ment and  the  country  were  greatly  excited  ;  the  government 


214  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  yielded  to  the  pressure ;  and  North  was  not  a  man  to  risk 
a  good  place  for  the  sake  of  justice  and  humanity.  Accord 
ingly,  while  he  was  in  secret  drawing  up  a  refutation  of  the 
whole  romance  of  the  Popish  Plot,  he  declared  in  public  that 
the  truth  of  the  story  was  as  plain  as  the  sun  in  heaven,  and 
was  not  ashamed  to  browbeat,  from  the  seat  of  judgment,  the 
unfortunate  Roman  Catholics  who  were  arraigned  before  him 
for  their  lives.  He  had  .at  length  reached  the  highest  post  in 
the  law.  But  a  lawyer  who,  after  many  years  devoted  to  pro- 
fessional labor,  engages  in  politics  for  the  first  time  at  an 
advanced  period  of  life,  seldom  distinguishes  himself  as  a 
statesman,  and  Guildford  was  no  exception  to  the  general  rule. 
He  was  indeed  so  sensible  of  his  deficiencies,  that  he  never 
attended  the  meetings  of  his  colleagues  on  foreign  affairs. 
Even  on  questions  relating  to  his  own  profession,  his  opinion 
had  less  weight  at  the  council  board  than  that  of  any  man  who 
has  ever  held  the  great  seal.  Such  as  his  influence  was,  how- 
ever, he  used 'it,  as  far  as  he  dared,  on  the  side  of  the  laws. 

The  chief  opponent  of  Halifax  was  Lawrence  Hyde,  who 
had  recently  been  created  Earl  of  Rochester.  Of  all  Tories, 
Rochester  was  the  most  intolerant  and  uncompromising.  The 
moderate  members'  of  his  party  complained  that  the  whole 
patronage  of  the  Treasury,  while  he  was  first  commissioner 
there,  went  to  noisy  zealots,  whose  only  claim  to  promotion 
was,  that  they  were  always  drinking  confusion  to  Whiggery 
and  lighting  bonfires  to  burn  the  Exclusion  Bill.  The  Duke 
of  York,  pleased  with  a  spirit  which  so  much  resembled  his 
own,  supported  his  brother-in-law  passionately  and  obstinately. 

The  attempts  of  the  rival  ministers  to  surmount  and  supplant 
each  other  kept  the  court  in  incessant  agitation.  Halifax 
pressed  the  king  to  summon  a  parliament,  to  grant  a  general 
amnesty,  to  deprive  the  Duke  of  York  of  all  share  in  the 
government,  to  recall  Monmouth  from  banishment,  to  break 
with  Lewis,  and  to  form  a  close  union  with  Holland  on  the 
principles  of  the  Triple  Alliance.  The  Duke  of  York,  on  the 
other  hand,  dreaded  the  meeting  of  a  parliament,  regarded 
the  vanquished  Whigs  with  undiminished  hatred,  still  flattered 
himself  that  the  design  formed  nearly  fifteen  years  before  at 
Dover  might  be  accomplished,  daily  represented  to  his  brother 
the  impropriety  of  suffering  one  who  was  at  heart  a  republican 
to  hold  the  privy  seal,  and  strongly  recommended  Rochester 
tor  the  great  place  of  lord  treasurer. 

While  the  two  factions  were  struggling,  Godolphin,  cau- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  215 

.  tious,  suent,  and  laborious,  observed  a  neutrality  between 
them.  Sunderland,  with  his  usual  restless  perfidy,  intrigued 
against  them  both.  He  had  been  turned  out  of  office  in  dis- 
grace for  having  voted  in  favor  of  the  Exclusion  Bill,  but  had 
made  his  peace  by  employing  the  good  offices  of  the  Duchess 
of  Portsmouth,  and  by  cringing  to  the  Duke  of  York,  and  was 
once  more  secretary  of  state. 

Nor  was  Lewis  negligent  or  inactive.  Every  thing  at  that 
moment  favored  his  designs.  He  had  nothing  to  apprehend 
from  the  German  empire,  which  was  then  contending  against 
the  Turks  on  the  Danube.  Holland  could  not,  unsupported, 
venture  to  oppose  him.  He  was  therefore  at  liberty  to  indulge 
his  ambition  and  insolence  without  restraint.  He  seized  Dix- 
mude  and  Courtray.  He  bombarded  Luxemburg.  He  ex- 
acted from  the  republic  of  Genoa  the  most  humiliating  sub- 
missions. The  power  of  France  at  that  time  reached  a  higher 
point  than  it  ever  before  or  ever  after  attained,  during  the  ten 
centuries  which  separated  the  reign  of  Charlemagne  and 
the  reign  of  Napoleon.  It  was  not  easy  to  say  where  her 
acquisitions  would  stop,  if  only  England  could  be  kept  in  a 
state  of  vassalage.  The  first  object  of  the  court  of  Versailles 
was  therefore  to  prevent  the  calling  of  a  parliament  and  the 
reconciliation  of  English  parties.  For  this  end,  bribes,  prom- 
ises, and  menaces,  were  unsparingly  employed.  Charles  was 
sometimes  allured  by  the  hope  of  a  subsidy,  and  sometimes 
frightened  by  being  told  that,  if  he  convoked  the  Houses,  the 
secret  articles  of  the  treaty  of  Dover  should  be  published. 
Several  privy  councillors  were  bought ;  and  attempts  were 
made  to  buy  Halifax,  but  in  vain.  When  he  had  been  found 
incorruptible,  all  the  art  and  influence  of  the  French  embassy 
were  employed  to  drive  him  from  office ;  but  his  polished  wit 
and  his  various  accomplishments  had  made  him  so  agreeable 
to  his  master,  that  the  design  failed.* 

*  Lord  Preston,  who  was  envoy  at  Paris,  wrote  thence  to  Halifax 
as  follows  :  «'  I  find  that  your  lordship  lies  atill  under  the  same  mis- 
fortune of  being  no  favorite  to  this  court ;  and  Monsieur  Barillon 
dare  not  do  you  the  honor  to  shine  upon  you,  since  his  master 
frowneth.  They  know  very  well  your  lordship's  qualifications,  which 
make  them  fear  and  consequently  hate  you :  and  be  assured,  my 
lord,  if  all  their  strength  can  send  you  to  Rufford,  it  shall  be  em- 
ployed for  that  end.  Two  things,  I  hear,  they  particularly  object 
against  you  —  your  secrecy,  and  your  being  incapable  of  being  cor- 
rupted. Against  these  two  things  I  know  they  have  declared."  The 
date  of  the  letter  is  October  5,  N.  S.  1683. 


216  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Halifax  was  not  content  with  standing  on  the  defensive  • 
He  openly  accused  Rochester  of  malversation.  An  inquiry 
took  place.  It  appeared  that  forty  thousand  pounds  had  been 
lost  to  the  public  by  the  mismanagement  of  the  first  lord  of 
the  Treasury.  In  consequence  of  this  discovery  he  was  not 
only  forced  to  relinquish  his  hopes  of  the  white  staff,  but  was 
removed  from  the  direction  of  the  finances  to  the  more  digni- 
fied but  less  lucrative  and  important  post  of  lord  president 
"  I  have  seen  people  kicked  down  stairs  before,"  said  Hali- 
fax ;  "  but  my  Lord  Rochester  is  the  first  person  that  I  ever 
saw  kicked  up  stairs."  Godolphin,  now  a  peer,  became  first 
commissioner  of  the  Treasury. 

Still,  however,  the  contest  continued.  The  event  depended 
wholly  on  the  will  of  Charles ;  and  Charles  could  not  come  to 
a  decision.  In  his  perplexity  he  promised  every  thing  to  every 
body.  He  would  stand  by  France :  he  would  break  with 
France  :  he  would  never  meet  another  parliament :  he  would 
order  writs  for  a  parliament  to  be  issued  without  delay.  He 
assured  the  Duke  of  York  that  Halifax  should  be  dismissed 
from  office,  and  Halifax  that  the  duke  should  be  sent  to  Scot- 
land. In  public  he  affected  implacable  resentment  against 
Monmouth,  and  in  private  conveyed  to  Monmouth  assurances 
of  unalterable  affection.  How  long,  if  the  king's  life  had  been 
proti acted,  his  hesitation  might  have  lasted,  and  what  would 
have  been  his  resolve,  can  only  be  conjectured.  Early  in  the 
year  1685,  while  hostile  parties  were  anxiously  awaiting  his 
determination,  he  died,  and  a  new  scene  opened.  In  a  few 
months  the  excesses  of  the  government  obliterated  the  impres- 
sion which  had  been  made  on  the  public  mind  by  the  excesses 
of  the  opposition.  The  violent  reaction  which  had  laid  the 
Whig  party  prostrate  was  followed  by  a  still  more  violent  re- 
action in  the  opposite  direction ;  and  signs  not  to  be  mistaken 
indicated  that  the  great  conflict  between  the  prerogative  of 
the  crown  and  the  privileges  of  the  parliament,  was  ihwt  M» 
oe  brought  to  a  final  issue. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  21? 


CHAPTER    III. 

I  INTEND,  in  this  chapter,  to  give  a  description  of  the  state 
in  which  England  was  at  the  time  when  the  crown  passed 
from  Charles  the  Second  to  his  brother.  Such  a  description, 
composed  from  scanty  and  dispersed  materials,  must  neces- 
sarily be  very  imperfect.  Yet  it  may  perhaps  correct  some 
false  notions  which  would  render  the  subsequent  narrative 
unintelligible  or  uninstructive. 

If  we  would  study  with  profit  the  history  of  our  ancestors, 
we  must  be  constantly  on  our  guard  against  that  delusion  which 
the  well-known  names  of  families,  places,  and  offices  naturally 
produce,  and  must  never  forget  that  the  country  of  which  we 
read  was  a  very  different  country  from  that  in  which  we  live. 
In  every  experimental  science  there  is  a  tendency  towards 
perfection.  In  every  human  being  there  is  a  wish  to  amelio- 
rate his  own  condition.  These  two  principles  have  often  suf- 
ficed, even  when  counteracted  by  great  public  calamities  and 
by  bad  institutions,  to  carry  civilization  rapidly  forward.  No 
ordinary  misfortune,  no  ordinary  misgovernment,  will ,  do  so 
much  to  make  a  nation  wretched,  as  the  constant  progress  of 
physical  knowledge  and  the  constant  effort  of  every  man  to 
better  himself  will  do  to  make  a  nation  prosperous.  It  has 
often  been  found  that  profuse  expenditure,  heavy  taxation, 
absurd  commercial  restrictions,  corrupt  tribunals,  disastrous 
wars,  seditions,  persecutions,  conflagrations,  inundations,  have 
not  been  able  to  destroy  capital  so  fast  as  the  exertions  of  pri- 
vate citizens  have  been  able  to  create  it.  It  can  easily  be 
proved  that,  in  our  own  land,  the  national  wealth  has,  during 
at  least  six  centuries,  been  almost  uninterruptedly  increasing ; 
that  it  was  greater  under  the  Tudors  than  under  the  Plantage- 
nets ;  that  it  was  greater  under  the  Stuarts  than  under  the  Tu- 
dors ;  that,  in  spite  of  battles,  sieges,  and  confiscations,  it  was 
greater  on  the  day  of  the  Restoration  than  on  the  day  when 
the  Long  Parliament  met ;  that,  in  spite  of  maladministration, 
of  extravagance,  of  public  bankruptcy,  of  two  costly  and  un- 
successful wars,  of  the  pestilence  and  of  the  fire,  it  was  great- 
er on  the  day  of  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second  than  on  the 
VOL.  i.  19 


218  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

day  of  his  restoration.  This  progress,  having  continued 
during  many  ages,  became  at  length,  about  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  portentously  rapid,  and  has  proceeded, 
during  the  nineteenth,  with  accelerated  velocity.  In  conse- 
quence, partly  of  our  geographical  and  partly  of  our  moral 
position,  we  have,  during  several  generations,  been  exempl 
from  evils  which  have  elsewhere  impeded  the  efforts  and  de- 
stroyed the  fruits  of  industry.  While  every  part  of  the  Conti- 
nent, from  Moscow  to  Lisbon,  has  been  the  theatre  of  bloody 
and  devastating  wars,  no  hostile  standard  has  been  seen  here 
but  as  a  trophy.  While  revolutions  have  taken  place  all 
around  us,  our  government  has  never  once  been  subverted  by 
violente.  During  a  hundred  years  there  has  been  in  our  island 
no  tumult  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  called  an  insurrection. 
The  law  has  never  been  borne  down  either  by  popular  fur}1 
or  by  regal  tyranny.  Public  credit  has  been  held  sacred 
The  administration  of  justice  has  been  pure.  Even  in  times 
which  might  by  Englishmen  be  justly  called  evil  times,  we 
have  enjoyed  what  almost  every  other  nation  in  the  world 
^ould  have  considered  as  an  ample  measure  of  civil  and 
«?ligious  freedom.  Every  man  has  felt  entire  confidence  that 
the  state  would  protect  him  in  the  possession  of  what  had  been 
earned  by  his  diligence  and  hoarded  by  his  self-denial.  Un- 
der the  benignant  influence  of  peace  and  liberty,  science  has 
flourished,  and  has  been  applied  to  practical  purposes  on  a 
scale  never  before  known.  The  consequence  is,  that  a  change 
to  which  the  history  of  the  old  world  furnishes  no  parallel  has 
taken  place  in  our  country.  Could  the  England  of  1685  be, 
by  some  magical  process,  set  before  our  eyes,  we  should  not 
know  one  landscape  in  a  hundred  or  one  building  in  ten  thou- 
sand. The  country  gentleman  would  not  recognize  his  own 
fields.  The  inhabitant  of  the  town  would  not  recognize  his 
own  street.  Every  thing  has  been  changed,  but  the  great  fea- 
tures of  nature,  and  a  few  massive  and  durable  works  of  hu- 
man art.  We  might  find  out  Snowdon  and  Windermere,  the 
Cheddar  Cliffs  and  Beachy  Head.  We  might  find  out  here 
and  there  a  Norman  minster,  or  a  castle  which  witnessed  the 
wars  of  the  Roses.  But,  with  such  rare  exceptions,  every 
thing  would  be  strange  to  us.  Many  thousands  of  square  miles 
which  are  now  rich  corn  land  and  meadow,  intersected  by 
green  hedgerows,  and  dotted  with  villages  and  pleasant  coun- 
try-seats, would  appear  as  moors  overgrown  with  furze,  or  fens 
abandoned  to  wild  ducks.  We  should  see  straggling  huts 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  219 

built  of  wood  and  covered  with  thatch  where  we  now  see 
manufacturing  towns  and  seaports  renowned  to  the  farthest 
ends  of  the  world.  The  capital  itself  would  shrink  to  dimen- 
sions not  much  exceeding  those  of  its  present  suburb  on  the 
south  of  the  Thames.  Not  less  strange  to  us  would  be  the. 
garb  and  manners  of  the  people,  the  furniture  and  the  equi- 
pages, the  interior  of  the  shops  and  dwellings.  Such  a  change 
in  the  state  of  a  nation  seems  to  be  at  least  as  well  entitled  to 
the  notice  of  an  historian  as  any  change  of  the  dynasty  or 
of  the  ministry. 

,  One  of  the  first  objects  of  an  inquirer  who  wishes  to  form 
a  correct  notion  of  the  state  of  a  community  at  a  given  time 
must  be  to  ascertain  of  how  many  persons  that  community 
then  consisted.  Unfortunately  the  population  of  England  in 
1685  cannot  be  ascertained  with  perfect  accuracy.  For  no 
great  state  had  then  adopted  the  wise  course  of  periodically 
numbering  the  people.  All  men  were  left  to  conjecture  for 
themselves ;  and,  as  they  generally  conjectured  without  ex- 
amining facts,  and  under  the  influence  of  strong  passions  and 
prejudices,  their  guesses  were  often  ludicrously  absurd.  Even 
intelligent  Londoners  ordinarily  talked  of  London  as  contain- 
ing several  millions  of  souls.  It  was  confidently  asserted  by 
many  that,  during  the  thirty-five  years  which  had  elapsed  be- 
tween the  accession  of  Charles  the  First  and  the  Restoration, 
the  population  of  the  city  had  increased  by  two  millions.* 
Even  while  the  ravages  of  the  plague  and  fire  were  recent, 
it  was  the  fashion  to  say  that  the  capital  still  had  a  million  and 
a  half  of  inhabitants.t  Some  persons,  disgusted  by  these  ex- 
aggerations, ran  violently  into  the  opposite  extreme.  Thus 
Isaac  Vossius,  a  man  of  undoubted  parts  and  learning,  strenu- 
ously maintained  that  there  were  only  two  millions  of  human 
beings  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  taken  together-! 

We  are  not,  however,  left  without  the  means  of  correcting 
the  wild  blunders  into  which  some  minds  were  hurried  by 

*  Observations  on  the  Bills  of  Mortality,  by  Captain  John  Graunt 
(Sir  William  Petty),  chap.  xi. 

t  "  She  doth  compreher  d 

Full  fifteen  hundred  thousand  which  do  spend 
Their  days  within." —  Great  Britain's  Bs-mity,  1671. 

J  Isaac  Vossius,  De  Magnitudine  Urbium  Sinarum,  1685.  Vossius, 
as  we  learn  from  St.  Evremond,  talked  on  this  subject  oftener  and 
longer  than  fashionable  circles  cared  to  listen. 


220  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

national  vanity,  and  others  by  a  morbid  love  of  paradox. 
There  are  extant  three  computations  which  seem  to  be  enti- 
tled to  peculiar  attention.  They  are  entirely  independent  of 
each  other :  they  proceed  on  different  principles ;  and  ye 
there  is  little  difference  in  the  results. 

One  of  these  computations  was  made  in  the  year  1696  by 
Gregory  King,  Lancaster  herald,  a  political  arithmetician  of 
great  acuteness  and  judgment.  The  basis  of  his  calculations 
was  the  number  of  houses  returned  in  1690  by  the  officers 
who  made  the  last  collection  of  the  hearth  money.  The  con- 
clusion at  which  he  arrived  was,  that  the  population  of  England 
was  nearly  five  millions  and  a  half.* 

About  the  same  time  King  William  the  Third  was  desirous 
to  ascertain  the  comparative  strength  of  the  religious  sects  into 
which  the  community  was  divided.  An  inquiry  was  instituted ; 
und  reports  were  laid  before  him  from  all  the  dioceses  of  the 
realm.  According  to  these  reports  the  number  of  his  English 
subjects  must  have  been  about  five  million  two  hundred 
thousand.! 

Lastly,  in  our  own  days,  Mr.  Finlaison,  an  actuary  of 
eminent  skill,  subjected  the  ancient  parochial  registers  to  all 
the  tests  which  the  modern  improvements  in  statistical  science 
enabled  him  to  apply.  His  opinion  was  that,  at  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  population  of  England  was  a  little 
under  five  million  two  hundred  thousand  souJs.| 

Of  these  three  estimates,  framed  without  concert  by  differ- 
ent persons  from  different  sets  of  materials,  the  highest,  which 
is  that  of  King,  does  not  exceed  the  lowest,  which  is  tha    of 
Finlaison,  by  one  twelfth.     We  may,  therefore,  with  confi- 
dence pronounce  that,  when  James  the  Second  reigned,  Eng 
land  contained  between  five  million  and  five  million  five  hun 
dred  thousand  inhabitants.     On  the  very  highest  supposition 
she  then  had  less  than  one  third  of  her  present*  population,  and 

»  King's  Natural  and  Political  Observations,  1696.  This  valuable 
treatise,  which  ought  to  be  read  as  the  author  wrote  it,  and  not  as 
garbled  by  Davenant,  will  be  found  in  some  editions  of  Chalmers's 
Estimate. 

t  Dalrymple's  Appendix  to  Part  IT.  Book  I.  ^The  practice  of 
reckoning  the  population  by  sects  was  long  fashionable.  Gulliver 
says  of  the  king  of  Brobdingnag,  "  He  laughed  at  my  odd  arithmetic, 
as  he  was  pleased  to  call  it,  in  reckoning  the  numbers  of  our  people 
by  a  computation  drawn  from  the  several  sects  among  us  in  religion 
and  politics." 

J  Preface  to  the  Population  Returns  of  1831. 


HISTOKF    OF    ENGLAND.  221 

'ess  than  three  times  the  population  which  is  now  collected  in 
her  gigantic  capital. 

The  increase  of  the  people  has  been  great  in  every  part  of 
the  kingdom,  but  generally  much  greater  in  the  northern  than 
in  the  southern  shires.  In  truth  a  large  part  of  the  country 
beyond  Trent  was,  down  to  the  eighteenth  century,  in  a  state 
of  barbarism.  Physical  and  moral  causes  had  concurred  to 
prevent  civilization  from  spreading  to  that  region.  The  air 
was  inclement:  the  soil  was  generally  such  as  required  skilful 
and  industrious  cultivation ;  and  there  could  be  little  skill  or 
industry  in  a  tract  which  was  often  the  theatre  of  war,  and 
which,  even  when  there  was  nominal  peace,  was  constantly 
desolated  by  bands  of  Scottish  marauders.  Before  the  union 
of  the  two  British  crowns,  and  long  after  that  union,  there  was 
as  great  a  difference  between  Middlesex  and  Northumberland 
as  there  now  is  between  Massachusetts  and  the  settlements  of 
those  squatters  who,  far  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi,  admin- 
ister a  rude  justice  with  the  rifle  and  the  dagger.  In  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second,  the  traces  left  by  ages  of  slaughter  and 
pillage  were  still  distinctly  perceptible,  many  miles  south  of 
the  Tweed,  in  the  face  of  the  country  and  in  the  lawless  man- 
ners of  the  people.  There  was  still  a  large  class  of  moss- 
troopers, whose  calling  was  to  plunder  dwellings  and  to  drive 
away  whole  herds  of  cattle.  It  was  found  necessary,  soon 
after  the  Restoration,  to  enact  laws  of  great  severity  for  the 
prevention  of  these  outrages.  The  magistrates  of  Northum- 
berland and  Cumberland  were  authorized  to  raise  bands  of 
armed  men  for  the  defence  of  property  and  order ;  and  pro- 
vision was  made  for  meeting  the  expense  of  these  levies  by 
local  taxation.*  The  parishes  were  required  to  keep  blood- 
hounds for  the  purpose  of  hunting  the  freebooters.  Many  old 
men  who  were  living  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
could  well  remember  the  time  when  those  ferocious  dogs  were 
common,  f  Yet,  even  with  such  auxiliaries,  it  was  often  found 
impossible  to  track  the  robbers  to  their  retreats  among  the  hills 
and  morasses.  For  the  geography  of  that  wild  country  was  very 
imperfectly  known.  Even  after  the  accession  o£  George  tho 
Third,  the  path  ever  the  fells  from  Borrowdale  to  Ravenglas 


*  Statutes  14  Car.  II.  c.  22 ;  18  &  19  Car.  II.  c.  3 ;  29  &  30  Can 
H.  c.  2. 

t  Nicolson  and  Bourne,  Discourse  on  the  Ancient  State  of  the 
Border,  1777. 

19* 


222  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

svas  still  a  secret  carefully  kept  by  the  dalesmen,  some  of 
whom  had  probab  y  in  their  youth  escaped  from  the  pursuit 
of  justice  by  that  road.*  The  seats  of  the  gentry  and  the 
larger  farm-houses  were  fortified.  Oxen  were  penned  at  night 
beneath  the  overhanging  battlements  of  the  residence,  which 
was  known  by  the  name  of  the  Peel.  The  inmates  slept  with 
arms  at  their  sides.  Huge  stones  and  boiling  water  were  in 
readiness  to  crush  and  scald  the  plunderer  who  might  venture 
to  assail  the  little  garrison.  No  traveller  ventured  into  that 
country  without  making  his  will.  The  judges  on  circuit,  with 
the  whole  body  of  barristers,  attorneys,  clerks,  and  serving 
men,  rode  on  horseback  from  Newcastle  to  Carlisle,  armed 
and  escorted  by  a  strong  guard  under  the  command  of  the 
sheriffs.  It  was  necessary  to  carry  provisions ;  for  the  coun- 
try was  a  wilderness  which  afforded  no  supplies.  The  spot 
where  the  cavalcade  halted  to  dine,  under  an  immense  oak,  is 
not  yet  forgotten.  The  irregular  vigor  with  which  criminal 
justice  was  administered  shocked  observers  whose  life  had 
been  passed  in  more  tranquil  districts.  Juries,  animated  by 
hatred,  and  by  a  sense  of  common  danger,  convicted  house- 
breakers and  cattle-stealers  with  the  promptitude  of  a  court 
martial  in  a  mutiny ;  and  the  convicts  were  hurried  by  scores 
to  the  gallows.t  Within  the  memory  of  some  who  are  still 
living,  the  sportsman  who  wandered  in  pursuit  of  game  to  the 
sources  of  the  Tyne,  found  the  heaths  jjound  Keeldar  Castle 
peopled  by  a  race  scarcely  less  savage  than  the  Indians  of 
California,  and  heard  with  surprise  the  half-naked  women 
chanting  a  wild  measure,  while  the  men  with  brandished 
dirks  danced  a  war  dance.t 

Slowly  and  with  difficulty  peace  was  established  on  the  bor- 
der. In  the  train  of  peace  came  industry  and  all  the  arts  of 
life.  Meanwhile  it  was  discovered  that  the  regions  north  of 
the  Trent  possessed  in  their  coal  beds  a  source  of  wealth  far 
more  precious  than  the  gold  mines  of  Peru.  It  was  found 
that,  in  the  neighborhood  of  these  beds,  almost  every  manu- 
facture might  be  most  profitably  carried  on.  A  constant 
stream  of  emigrants  began  to  roll  northward.  It  appeared,  by 
the  returns  of  1841,  that  the  ancient  archiepiscopal  province 

*  Gray's  Journal  of  a  Tour  in  the  Lakes,  Oct.  3,  1769. 

t  North's  Life  of  Guildford.  Hutchinson's  History  of  Cumberland, 
parish  of  Brampton. 

I  See  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Journal,  Oct.  7,  1827,  in  his  Life  by  Mr 
Lockhart. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  223 

of  York  contained  two  sevenths  of  the  population  of  England. 
At  the  time  of  the  revolution,  that  province  was  believed  to 
contain  only  one  seventh  of  the  population.*  In  Lancashire, 
the  number  of  inhabitants  appears  to  have  increased  ninefold, 
while  in  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and  Northamptonshire,  it  has  hardly 
doubled.! 

Of  the  taxation  we  can  speak  with  more  confidence  and 
precision  than  of  the  population.  The  revenue  of  England, 
under  Charles  the  Second,  was  small,  when  compared  with 
the  resources  which  she  even  then  possessed,  or  with  the  sums 
which  were  raised  by  the  governments  of  the  neighboring 
countries.  It  was  little  more  than  three  fourths  of  the  revenue 
of  the  United  Provinces,  and  was  hardly  one  fifth  of  the  rev- 
enue of  France. 

The  most  important  head  of  receipt  was  the  excise,  which, 
in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles,  produced  five  hundred 
and  eighty-five  thousand  pounds,  clear  of  all  deductions.  The 
net  proceeds  of  the  customs  amounted  in  the  same  year  to  five 
hundred  and  thirty  thousand  pounds.  These  burdens  did  not 
lie  very  heavy  on  the  nation.  The  tax  on  chimneys,  though 
less  productive,  raised  far  louder  murmurs.  The  discontent 
excited  by  direct  imposts  is,  indeed,  almost  always  out  of  pro- 
portion to  *the  quantity  of  money  which  they  bring  into  the 
Exchequer ;  and  the  tax  on  chimneys  was,  even  among  direct 
imposts,  peculiarly  odious ;  for  it  could  be  levied  only  by 
means  of  domiciliary  visits ;  and  »f  such  visits  the  English 
have  always  been  impatient  to  a  degree  which  the  people  of 
other  countries  can  but  faintly  conceive.  The  poorer  house- 
holders were  frequently  unable  to  pay  their  hearth  money  to 
the  day.  When  this  happened,  their  furniture  was  distrained 
without  mercy ;  for  the  tax  was  farmed  ;  and  a  farmer  of  taxes 
is,  of.  all  creditors,  proverbially  the  most  rapacious.  The  col- 
lectors were  loudly  accused  of  performing  their  unpopular 
duty  with  harshness  and  insolence.  It  was  said  that,  as  soon 
as  they  appeared  at  the  threshold  of  a  cottage,  the  children 
began  to  wail,  and  the  old  women  ran  to  hide  their  earthen 

*  Dalrymple,  Appendix  to  Part  II.  Book  I.  The  returns  of  the 
,  hearth  money  lead  to  nearly  the  same  conclusion.  The  hearths  in  the 
province  of  York  were  not  a  sixth  of  the  hearths  of  England. 

t  I  do  not,  of  course,  pretend  to  strict  accuracy  here  ;  but  I  believe 
that  whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  the  last  returns  of 
hearth  money,  in  the  reign  of  William  the  Third,  with  the  census  of 
1841,  will  come  to  a  conclusion  not  very  different  from  mine. 


224  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ware.  Nay,  the  single  bed  of  a  poor  family  had  sometimes 
been  carried  away  and  sold.  The  net  annual  receipt  from 
this  tax  was  two  hundred  thousand  pounds.* 

When  to  the  three  great  sources  of  income  which  have  been 
mentioned  we  add  the  royal  domains,  then  far  more  extensive 
than  at  present,  the  first  fruits  and  tenths,  which  had  not  yet 
been  surrendered  to  the  Church,  the  duchies  of  Cornwall  and 
Lancaster,  the  forfeitures  and  the  fines,  we  shall  find  that  the 
whole  annual  revenue  of  the  crown  may  be  fairly  estimated 
at  about  fourteen  hundred  thousand  pounds.  Of  the  Post- 
Office,  more  will  hereafter  be  said.  The  profits  of  that  estab- 
lishment had  been  appropriated  by  parliament  to  the  Duke  of 
York. 

The  king's  revenue  was,  or  rather  ought  to  have  been, 
charged  with  the  payment  of  about  eighty  thousand  pounds  a 
year,  the  interest  of  the  sum  fraudulently  detained  in  the 
Exchequer  by  the  Cabal.  While  Danby  was  at  the  head  of 
the  finances,  the  creditors  had  received  their  dividends,  though 
not  with  the  strict  punctuality  of  modern  times ;  but  those  who 
had  succeeded  him  at  the  Treasury  had  been  less  expert,  or 
less  solicitous  to  maintain  public  faith.  Since  the  victory  won 
by  the  court  over  the  Whigs,  not  a  farthing  had  been  paid  ; 
and  no  redress  was  granted  to  the  sufferers,  till  a  new  dynasty 

*  There  are,  in  the  Pepysian  Library,  some  ballads  of  that  age  on 
the  chimney  money.    I  will  give  a  specimen  or  two :  — 
"  The  good  old  dames,  whenever  they  the  chimney  man  espied, 
Unto  their  nooks  they  haste  away,  their  pots  and  pipkins  hide. 
There  is  not  one  old  dame  in  ten,  and  search  the  nation  through, 
But,  if  you  talk  of  chimney  men,  will  spare  a  curse  or  two." 
Again,— 

"  Like  plundering  soldiers  they'd  enter  the  door, 
And  make  a  distress  on  the  goods  of  the  poor, 
While  frighted  poor  children  distractedly  cried : 
This  nothing  abated  their  insolent  pride." 

In  th<J  British  Museum  there  are  doggerel  verses  composed  on  the 
same  subject  and  in  the  same  spirit :  — 

"  Or,  if  through  poverty  it  be  not  paid, 
For  cruelty  to  tear  away  the  single  bed, 
On  which  the  poor  man  rests  his  weary  head, 
At  once  deprives  him  of  his  rest  and  bread." 

I  take  this  opportunity,  the  first  which  occurs,  of  acknowledging 
most  gratefully  the  kind  and  liberal  manner  in  which  the  Master  and 
Vice-master  of  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,  gave  me  access  to  the 
valuable  collections  of  Pepys. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  225 

had  established  a  new  system.  There  can  be  no  greater  error 
than  to  imagine  that  the  device  of  meeting  the  exigencies  of 
the  state  by  loans  was  imported  into  our  island  by  William 
the  Third.  From  a  period  of  immemorial  antiquity  it  had 
been  the  practice  of  every  English  government  to  contract 
debts.  What  the  Revolution  introduced  was  the  practice  of 
honestly  paying  them.* 

By  plundering  the  public  creditor,  it  was  possible  to  make 
an  income  of  about  fourteen  hundred  thousand  pounds,  with 
some  occasional  help  from  France,  support  the  necessary 
charges  of  the  government  and  the  wasteful  expenditure  of 
the  court.  For  that  load  which  pressed  most  heavily  on  the 
finances  of  the  great  continental  states  was  here  scarcely  felt. 
In  France,  Germany,  and  the  Netherlands,  armies,  such  as 
Henry  the  Fourth  and  Philip  the  Second  had  never  employed 
in  time  of  war,  were  kept  up  in  the  midst  of  peace.  Bastions 
and  ravelins  were  every  where  rising,  constructed  on  princi- 
ples unknown  to  Parma  or  Spinola.  Stores  of  artillery  and 
ammunition  were  accumulated,  such  as  even  Richelieu,  whom 
the  preceding  generation  had  regarded  as  a  worker  of  prodi- 
gies, would  have  pronounced  fabulous.  No  man  could  jour- 
ney many  leagues  in  those  countries  without  hearing  the  drums 
•)f  a  regiment  on  march,  or  being  challenged  by  the  sentinels 
on  the  drawbridge  of  a  fortress.  In  our  island,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  was  possible  to  live  long  and  to  travel  far,  without 
being  once  reminded,  by  any  martial  sight  or  sound,  that  the 
defence  of  nations  had  become  a  science  and  a  calling.  The 
majority  of  Englishmen  who  were  under  twenty-five  years  of 
age  had  probably  never  seen  a  company  of  regular  soldiers. 
Of  the  cities^  which,  in  the  civil  war,  had  valiantly  repelled 
hostile  armies,  scarce  one  was  now  capable  of  sustaining  a 
siege.  The  gates  stood  open  night  and  day.  The  ditches 
were  dry.  The  ramparts  had  been  suffered  to  fall  into  decay, 
or  were  repaired  only  that  the  townsfolk  might  have  a  pleas- 
ant walk  on  summer  evenings.  Of  the  old  baronial  keeps 
many  had  been  shattered  by  the  cannon  of  Fairfax  and  Crom- 
well, and  lay  in  heaps  of  ruin,  overgrown  with  ivy.  Those 
which  remained  had  lost  their  martial  character,  and  were  now 
rural  palaces  of  the  aristocracy.  The  moats  were  turned  into 
preserves  of  carp  and  pike.  The  mounds  were  planted  with 

*  My  chief  authorities  for  this  financial  statement  will  be  found  in 
the  Commons'  Journals,  Mrjch  1  and  March  20,  16Sf  • 
19* 


226  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

fragrant  shrubs,  through  which  spiral  walks  ran  up  to  summei 
houses  adorned  with  mirrors  and  paintings.*  There  were 
still  to  be  seen,  on  the  capes  of  the  sea-coast,  and  on  many 
inland  hills,  tall  posts,  surmounted  by  barrels.  Once  those 
barrels  had  been  filled  with  pitch.  Watchmen  had  been  set 
round  them  in  seasons  of  danger ;  and,  within  a  few  hours  after 
a  Spanish  sail  had  been  discovered  in  the  channel,  or  after  a 
thousand  Scottish  moss-troopers  had  crossed  the  Tweed,  the 
signal  fires  were  blazing  fifty  miles  off,  and  whole  counties 
were  rising  in  arms.  But  many  years  had  now  elapsed  since 
the  beacons  had  been  lighted  ;  and  they  were  regarded  rather 
as  curious  relics  of  ancient  manners  than  as  parts  of  a  ma- 
chinery necessary  to  the  safety  of  the  state.t 

The  only  army  which  the  law  recognized  was  the  militia. 
That  force  had  been  remodelled  by  two  acts  of  parliament 
passed  shortly  after  the  Restoration.  Every  man  who  pos- 
sessed five  hundred  pounds  a  year  derived  from  land,  or  six 
thousand  pounds  of  personal  estate,  was  bound  to  provide, 
equip,  and  pay,  at  his  own  charge,  one  horseman.  Every 
man  who  had  fifty  pounds  a  year  derived  from  land,  or  six 
hundred  pounds  of  personal  estate,  was  charged  in  like  man- 
ner with  one  pikeman  or  musketeer.  Smaller  proprietors 
were  joined  together  in  a  kind  of  society,  for  which  our  lan- 
guage does  not  afford  a  special  name,  but  which  an  Athenian 
would  have  called  a  Synteleia ;  and  each  society  was  required 
to  furnish,  according  to  its  means,  a  horse  soldier  or  a  foot 
soldier.  The  whole  number  of  cavalry  and  infantry  -  thus 
maintained  was  popularly  estimated  at  a  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  men.  | 

The  king  was,  by  the  ancient  constitution  of  the  realm,  and  by 
the  recent  and  solemn  acknowledgment  of  both  Houses  of  par- 
liament, the  sole  captain-general  of  this  large  force.  The  lords 
lieutenants  and  their  deputies  held  the  command  under  him, 
and  appointed  meetings  for  drilling  and  inspection.  The  time 
occupied  by  such  meetings,  however,  was  not  to  exceed  four- 
teen days  in  one  year.  The  justices  of  the  peace  were  au- 
nhorized  to  inflict  slight  penalties  for  breaches  of  discipline. 


*  See,  for  example,  the  picture  of  the  mound  at  Marlborough,  in 
Stukeley's  Itinerarum  Curiosum. 

t  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684. 

J  13  &  14  Car.  II.  c.  3;  15  Car.  II  c.  4.  Chamberlayne's  Stato 
of  England,  1684. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  •          227 

Of  the  ordinary  cost  no  part  was  paid  by  the  crown  but, 
when  the  trainbands  were  called  out  against  an  enemy,  their 
subsistence  became  a  charge  on  the  general  revenue  of  the 
state,  and  they  were  subject  to  the  utmost  rigor  of  martial  law. 
There  were  those  who  looked  on  the  militia  with  no  friendly 
eye.  Men  who  had  travelled  much  on  the  Continent,  who 
had  marvelled  at  the  stern  precision  with  which  every  senti- 
nel moved  and  spoke  in  the  citadels  built  by  Vauban,  who 
had  seen  the  mighty  armies  which  poured  along  all  the  roads 
of  Germany  to  chase  the  Ottoman  from  the  gates  of  Vienna, 
and  who  had  been  dazzled  by  the  well-ordered  pomp  of  the 
household  troops  of  Lewis,  sneered  much  at  the  way  in  which 
the  peasants  of  Devonshire  and  Yorkshire  marched  and 
wheeled,  shouldered  muskets,  and  ported  pikes.  The  ene- 
mies of  the  liberties  and  religion  of  England  looked  with 
aversion  on  a  force  which  could  not,  without  extreme  risk,  be 
employed  against  those  liberties  and  that  religion,  and  missed 
no  opportunity  of  throwing  ridicule  on  the  rustic  soldiery.* 
Enlightened  patriots,  when  they  contrasted, these  rude  levies 
with  the  battalions  which,  in  time  of  war,  a  few  hours  might 
^bring  to  the  coast  of  Kent  or  Sussex,  were  forced  to  acknowl- 
edge that,  dangerous  as  it  might  be  to  keep  up  a  permanent 
military  establishment,  it  might  be  more  dangerous  still  to 
stake  the  honor  and  independence  of  the  country  on  the  re- 
sult of  a  contest  between  ploughmen  officered  by  justices 
of  the  peace,  and  veteran  warriors  led  by  marshals  of  France. 
In  parliament,  however,  it  was  necessary  to  express  such  opin- 
ions with  some  reserve  ;  for  the  militia  was  an  institution  em- 
inently popular.  Every  reflection  thrown  on  it  excited  the 
indignation  of  both  the  great  parties  in  the  state,  and  espe- 
cially of  that  party  which  was  distinguished  by  peculiar  zeal 

*  Dryden,  in  his  Cymon  and  Iphigenia,  expressed,  with  his  usual 
keenness  and  energy,  the  sentiments  which  had  been  fashionable 
among  the  sycophants  of  James  the  Second :  — 

"  The  country  rings  around  with  loud  alarms, 

And  raw  in  fields  the  rude  militia  swarms  ; 

Mouths  without  hands,  maintained  at  vast  expense, 

In  peace  a  charge,  in  war  a  weak  defence. 

Stout  once  a  month  they  march,  a  blustering  band, 

And  ever,  but  in  time  of  need,  at  hand. 

This  was  the  morn  when,  issuing  on  the  guard, 

Drawn  Up  in  rank  and  file,  they  stood  prepared 

Of  seeming  arms  to  make  a  short  essay, 

Then  hasten  to  be  drunk,  the  business  of  the  day." 


228  HISTORY    OF-  ENGLAND. 

for  monarchy  and  for  the  Anglican  Church.  The  array  of 
the  counties  was  commanded  almost  exclusively  by  Tory 
noblemen  and  gentlemen.  They  were  proud  of  their  military 
rank,  and  considered  an  insult  offered  to  the  service  to  which 
they  belonged  as  offered  to  themselves.  They  were  also 
perfectly  aware  that  whatever  was  said  against  a  militia  was 
said  in  favor  of  a  standing  army ;  and  the  name  of  standing 
army  was  hateful  to  them.  One  such  army  had  held  domin- 
ion in  England ;  and  under  that  dominion  the  king  had  been 
murdered,  the  nobility  degraded,  the  landed  gentry  plundered, 
the  church  persecuted.  There  was  scarce  a  rural  grandee 
who  could  not  tell  a  story  of  wrongs  and  insults  suffered  by 
himself,  or  by  his  father,  at  the  hands  of  the  parliamentary 
soldiers.  One  old  Cavalier  had  seen  half  his  manor  house 
blown  up.  The  hereditary  elms  of  another  had  been  hewn 
down.  A  third  could  never  go  into  his  parish  church  without 
being  reminded,  by  the  defaced  scutcheons  and  headless 
statues  of  his  ancestry,  that  Oliver's  redcoats  had  once  stabled 
their  horses  there.  The  consequence  was,  that  those  very 
royalists  who  were  most  ready  to  fight  for  the  king  themselves 
were  the  last  persons  whom  he  could  venture  to  ask  for  the 
means  of  hiring  regular  troops. 

Charles,  however,  had,  a  few  months  after  his  restoration, 
begun  to  form  a  small  standing  army.  He  felt  that,  without 
some  better  protection  than  that  of  the  trainbands  and  beef- 
eaters, his  palace  and  person  would  hardly  be  secure,  in  the 
vicinity  of  a  great  city  swarming  with  warlike  fifth  monarchy 
men  who  had  just  been  disbanded.  He  therefore,  careless 
and  profuse  as  he  was,  contrived  to  spare  from  his  pleasures 
a  sum  sufficient  to  keep  up  a  body  of  guards.  With  the  in- 
crease of  trade  and  of  public  wealth  his  revenues  increased  ; 
and  he  was  thus  enabled,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  murmurs 
ind  remonstrances  of  the  Commons,  to  make  gradual  additions 
'«  his  regular  forces.  One  considerable  addition  was  made 
A  few  months  before  the  close  of  his  reign.  The  costly,  use- 
*ess,  and  pestilential  settlement  of  Tangier  was  abandoned  to 
.he  barbarians  who  dwelt  around  it ;  and  the  garrison,  con- 
sisting of  one  regiment  of  horse  and  two  regiments  of  foot, 
was  brought  to  England. 

The  little  army  thus  formed  by  Charles  the  Second  was  the 
jerm  of  that  great  and  renowned  army  which  has,  in  the 
present  century,  marched  triumphant  into  Madrid  and  Paris, 
into  Chiton  and  Candahar.  The  Life  Guards,  who  now  fonii 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  229     - 

two  regiments,  were  then  distributed  into  three  troops,  each 
of  which  consisted  of  two  hundred  carabineers,  exclusive  of 
officers.  This  corps,  to  which  the  safety  of  the  king  and 
royal  family  was  confided,  had  a  very  peculiar  character. 
Even  the  privates  were  designated  as  gentlemen  of  the  guard. 
Many  of  them  were  of  good  families,  and  had  held  commis- 
sions in  the  civil  war.  Their  pay  was  far  higher  than  that  of 
the  most  favored  regiment  of  our  time,  and  would  in  that  age 
have  been  thought  a  respectable  provision  for  the  younger 
son  of  a  country  gentleman.  Their  fine  horses,  their  rich 
housings,  their  cuirasses,  and  their  buff  coats  adorned  with 
ribbons,  velvet,  and  gold  lace,  made  a  splendid  appearance  in 
St.  James's  Park.  A  small  body  of  grenadier  dragoons,  who 
came  from  a  lower  class  and  received  lower  pay,  was  attached 
to  each  troop.  Another  body  of  household  cavalry  distin- 
guished by  blue  coats  and  cloaks,  and  still  called  the  Blues, 
was  generally  quartered  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  capital. 
Near  the  capital  lay  also  the  corps  which  is  now  designated 
as  the  first  regiment  of  dragoons,  but  which  was  then  the 
only  regiment  of  dragoons  on  the  English  establishment.  It 
had  recently  been  formed  out  of  the  cavalry  who  had  returned 
from  Tangier.  A  single  troop  of  dragoons,  which  did  not 
form  part  of  any  regiment,  was  stationed  near*  Berwick,  for 
the  purpose  of  keeping  the  peace  among  the  moss-troopers  of 
the  border.  For  this  species  of  service  the  dragoon  was  then 
thought  to  be  peculiarly  qualified".  He  has  since  become  a 
mere  horse  soldier.  But  in  the  seventeenth  century  he  was 
accurately  described  by  Montecuculi  as  a  foot  soldier,  who 
used  a  horse  only  in  order  to  arrive  with  more  speed  at  the 
place  where  military  service  was  to  be  performed. 

The  household  infantry  consisted  of  two  regiments,  which 
were  then,  as  now,  called  the  first  regiment  of  Foot  Guards 
and  the  Coldstream  Guards.  They  generally  did  duty  near 
Whitehall  and  St.  James's  Palace.  As  there  were  then  no 
barracks,  and  as,  by  the  Petition  of  Right,  they  could  not  be 
quartered  on  private  families,  they  filled  all  the  alehouses  of 
Westminster  and  the  Strand. 

There  were  five  other  regiments  of  foot.  One  of  these, 
called  the  Admiral's  Regiment,  was  especially  destined  to 
service  on  board  of  the  fleet.  The  remaining  four  still  rank 
as  the  first  four  regiments  of  the  line.  Two  of  these  repre- 
sented two  bands  which  had  long  sustained  on  the  Continent 
the  fame  of  English  valor.  The  first,  or  Royal  Regiment, 
VOL.  i.  20 


230  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

nad,  under  the  great  Gustavus,  borne  a  cons}  <ou»  cart  in 
the  deliverance  of  Germany.  The  third  regiment,  distin- 
guished by  flesh-colored  facings,  from  which  it  derived  the 
well-known  name  of  the  Buffs,  had,  under  Maurice  of  Nassau, 
fought  not  less  bravely  for  the  deliverance  of  the  Netherlands. 
Both  these  gallant  brigades  had  at  length,  after  many  vicissi- 
tudes, been  recalled  from  foreign  service  by  Charles  the  Sec- 
ond, and  had  been  placed  on  the  English  establishment. 

The  regiments  which  now  rank  as  the  second  and  fourth 
of  the  line  had,  in  1685,  just  returned  from  Tangier,  bringing 
with  them-  cruel  and  licentious  habits,  contracted  in  a  long 
course  of  warfare  with  the  Moors.  A  few  companies  of  in- 
fantry which  had  not  been  regimented  lay  in  garrison  at  Til- 
bury Fort,  at  Portsmouth,  at  Plymouth,  and  at  some  other 
important  stations  on  or  near  the  coast. 

Since  ,the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  great 
change  had  taken  place  in  the  arms  of  the  infantry.  The 
pike  had  been  gradually  giving  place  to  the  musket ;  and  at 
the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  most  of  his  fool 
were  musketeers.  Still,  however,  there  was  a  large  intermix- 
ture of  pikemen.  Each  class  of  troops  was  occasionally 
instructed  in  the  use  of  the  weapon  which  pcouliarly  belonged 
to  the  other  class.  Every  foot  soldier  had  ,  i  his  side  a  sword 
for  close  fight.  The  dragoon  was  armed  v,ke  a  musketeer, 
and  was  also  provided  with  a  weapon  which  had,  during  many 
years,  been  gradually  coming  into  use,  and  which  the  English 
then  called  a  dagger,  but  which,  from  the  time  of  our  revolu- 
tion, has  been  known  among  us  by  the  French  name  of  bayo- 
net. The  bayonet  seems  not  to  have  been  so  formidable  an 
instrument  of  destruction  as  it  has  since  become ;  for  it  was 
inserted  in  the  muzzle  of  the  gun ;  and  in  action  much  time 
was  lost  while  the  soldier  unfixed  his  bayonet  in  order  to  fire, 
and  fixed  it  again  in  order  to  charge. 

The  regular  army  which  was  kept  up  in  England  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1685  consisted,  all  ranks  included,  of 
about  seven  thousand  foot,  and  about  seventeen  hundred  cav- 
alry and  dragoons.  The  whole  charge  amounted  to  about 
two  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  pounds  a  year,  less  than  a 
tenth  part  of  what  the  military  establishment  of  France  then 
cost  in  time  of  peace.  The  daily  pay  of  a  private  in  the 
Life  Guards  was  four  sh.iE.ings,  in  the  Blues  two  shillings  and 
sixpence,  in  the  Dragoons  eighteenpence,  in  the  Foot  Guards 
tenpe  ;ce,  and  \n  the  line  eightpence.  The  discipline  wa^s  lax, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  231 

and  indeed  could  not  be  otherwise.  The  common  lav;'  of 
England  knew  nothing  of  courts  martial,  and  made  no  dis 
Unction,  in  time  of  peace,  between  a  soldier  and  any  othei 
subject ;  nor  could  the  government  then  venture  to  ask  even 
the  most  loyal  parliament  for  a  mutiny  bill.  A  soldier,  there- 
fore, by  knocking  down  his  colonel,  incurred  only  the  ordinary 
penalties  of  assault  and  battery,  and,  by  refusing  to  obey  orders, 
by  sleeping  on  guard,  or  by  deserting  his  colors,  incurred 
no  legal  penalty  at  all.  Military  punishments  were  doubtless 
inflicted  during  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  ;  but  they 
were  inflicted  very  sparingly,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  not  to 
attract  public  notice,  or  to  produce  an  appeal  to  the  courts  of 
Westminster  Hall. 

Such  an  army  as  has  been  described  was  not  very  likely  to 
enslave  five  millions  of  Englishmen.  It  would  indeed  have 
been  hardly  able  to  suppress  an  insurrection  in  London,  if  the 
trainbands  of  the  city  had  joined  the  insurgents.  Nor  could 
the  .king  expect  that,  if  a  rising  took  place  in  England,  he 
would  be  able  to  obtain  help  from  his  other  dominions.  For, 
though  both  Scotland  and  Ireland  supported  separate  military 
establishments,  those  establishments  were  not  more  than  suf- 
ficient to  keep  down  the  Puritan  malcontents  of  the  former 
kingdom,  and  the  Popish  malcontents  of  the  latter.  The 
government  had,  however,  an  important  military  resource 
which  must  not  be  left  unnoticed.  There  were  in  the  pay 
of  the  United  Provinces  six  fine  regiments,  formerly  com- 
manded by  the  brave  Ossory.  Of  these  regiments  three  had 
been  raised  in  England  and  three  in  Scotland.  Their  native 
prince  had  reserved  to  himself  the  power  of  recalling  them, 
if  he  needed  their  help  against  a  foreign  or  domestic  enemy. 
In  the  mean  time  they  were  maintained  without  any  charge  to 
him,  and  were  kept  under  an  excellent  discipline,  to  which  he 
could  not  have  ventured  to  subject  them.* 

If  the  jealousy  of  the  parliament  and  of  the  nation  made  it 
impossible  for  the  king  to  maintain  a  formidable  standing  army, 
no  similar  impediment  prevented  him  from  making  England  the 

*  Most  of  the  materials  -which.  I  have  used  for  this  account  of  the 
tegular  army  will  be  found  in  the  Historical  Records  of  Regiments, 
aublished  by  command  of  King  Wilaiam  the  Fourth,  and  under  the 
Airection  of  the  Adjutant-General.  See  also  Chamberlayne's  State 
of  England,  1684 ;  Abridgment  of  the  English  Military  Discipline, 
printed  by  especial  command,  1685 ;  Exercise  of  Foot,  by  theiz 
Majesties'  command,  1690. 


232  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

first  of  maritime  powers.  Both  Whigs  and  Tories  were  ready 
to  applaud  every  step  tending  to  increase  the  efficiency  of  that 
force  which,  while,  it  was  the  best  protection  of  the  island 
against  foreign  enemies,  was  powerless  against  civil  liberty. 
All  the  greatest  exploits  achieved  within  the  memory  of  that 
generation  by  "English  soldiers  had  been  achieved  in  war 
against  English  princes.  The  victories  of  our  sailors  had 
been  won  over  foreign  foes,  and  had  averted  havoc  and  rapine 
from  our  own  soil.  By  at  least  half  the  nation  the  battle  of 
Naseby  was  remembered  with  horror,  and  the  battle  of  Dun- 
bar  with  pride  checkered  by  many  painful  feelings ;  but  the 
defeat  of  the  Armada,  and  the  encounters  of  Blake  with  the 
Hollanders  and  Spaniards,  were  recollected  with  unmixed 
exultation  by  all  parties.  Ever'  since  the  Restoration,  the 
Commons,  even  when  most  discontented  and  most  parsimo- 
nious, had  always  been  bountiful  even  to  profusion  where  the 
interest  of  the  navy  was  concerned.  It  had  been  represented 
to  them,  while  Danby  was  minister,  that  many  of  the  vessels 
in  the  royal  fleet  were  old  and  unfit  for  sea ;  and,  although 
the  House  was,  at  that  time,  in  no  giving  mood,  an  aid  of  near 
six  hundred  thousand  pounds  had  been  granted  for  the  building 
of  thirty  new  men  of  war. 

But  the  liberality  of  the  nation  had  been  made  fruitless  by 
the  vices  of  the  government.  The  list  of  the  king's  ships-,  it 
is  true,  looked  well.  There  were  nine  first  rates,  fourteen 
second  rates,  thirty-nine  third  rates,  and  many  smaller  vessels. 
The  first  rates,  indeed,  were  less  than  the  third  rates  of  our 
time ;  and  the  third  rates  would  not  now  rank  as  very  large  frig- 
ates. This  force,  however,  if  it  had  been  efficient,  would  in  those 
days  have  been  regarded  by  the  greatest  potentate  as  formi- 
dable. But  it  existed  only  on  paper.  When  the  reign  of 
Charles  terminated,  his  navy  had  sunk  into  degradation  and 
decay,  such  as  would  be  almost  incredible  if  it  were  not  cer- 
tified to  us  by  the  independent  and  concurring  evidence  of 
witnesses  whose  authority  is  beyond  exception.  Pepys,  the 
ablest  man  in  the  English  admiralty,  drew  up,  in  the  year 
1684,  a  memorial  on  the  state  of  his  department,  for  the 
information  of  Charles.  A  few  months  later  Bonrepaux,  the 
ablest  man  in  the  French  admiralty,  having  visited  England 
for  the  especial  purpose  of  ascertaining  her  maritime  strength, 
laid  the  result  of  his  inquiries  before  Lewis.  The  two  reports 
are  to  the  same  effect.  Bonrepaux  declared  that  he  found  every 
thing  in  disorder  and  in  miserable  condition,  that  the  su 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  233 

periority  of  the  French  marine  was  acknowledged,  with  shame 
and  envy  at  Whitehall,  and  that  the  state  of  our  shipping  and 
dockyards  was  of  itself  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  we  should 
not  meddle  in  the  disputes  of  Europe.*  Pepys  informed  his 
master  that  the  naval  administration  was  a  prodigy  of  waste- 
fulness, corruption,  ignorance,  and  indolence,  that  no  estimate 
could  be  trusted,  that  no  contract  was  performed,  that  no 
check  was  enforced.  The  vessels  which  the  recent  liberality 
of  parliament  had  enabled  the  government  to  build,  and  which 
had  never  been  out  of  harbor,  had  been  made  of  such 
wretched  timber  that  they  were  more  unfit  to  go  to  sea  than 
the  old  hulls  which  had  been  battered  thirty  years  before  by 
Dutch  and  Spanish  broadsides.  Some  of  the  new  men  of 
war,  indeed,  were  so  rotten  that,  unless  speedily  repaired, 
they  would  go  down  at  their  moorings.  The  sailors  were 
paid  with  so  little  punctuality  that  they  were  glad  to  find  some 
usurer  who  would  purchase  their  tickets  at  forty  per  cent, 
discount.  The  commanders  who  had  not  powerfcl  friends  at 
court  were  even  worse  treated.  Some  officers,  to  whom 
large  arrears  were  due,  after  vainly  importuning  the  gov- 
ernment during  many  years,  had  died  for  want  of  a  morsel 
of  bread. 

Most  of  the  ships  which  were  afloat  were  commanded  by 
men  who  had  not  been  bred  to  the  sea.  This,  it  is  true,  was 
not  an  abuse  introduced  by  the  government  of  Charles.  No 
state,  ancient  or  modern,  had,  before  that  time,  made  a  com- 
plete separation  between  the  naval  and  military  services.  In 
the  great  civilized  nations  of  the  old  world,  Cimon  and  Ly- 
sander,  Pompey  and  Agrippa,  had  fought  battles  by  sea  as 
well  as  by  land.  Nor  had  the  impulse  which  nautical  science 
received  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  produced  any 
material  improvement  in  the  division  of  labor.  At  Flodden 
the  right  wing  of  the  victorious  army  was  led  by  the  admiral 
of  England.  At  Jarnac  and  Moncontour  the  Huguenot  ranks 


*  I  refer  to  a  despatch,  of  Bonrepa\ix  to  Seignelay,  dated  Feb.  y%-, 
1686.  It  was  transcribed  for  Mr.  Fox  from  the  French  archives, 
during  the  peace  of  Amiens,  and,  with  the  other  materials  brought 
together  by  that  great  man,  was  intrusted  to  me  by  the  kindness  of 
the  late  Lady  Holland,  and  of  the  present  Lord  Holland.  I  ought  to 
add  that,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  troubles  which  have  lately  agitated 
Paris,  I  have  found  no  difficulty  in  obtaining,  from  the  liberality  of 
the  functionaries  there,  extracts  supplying  some  chasftis  in  Mr.  Fox's 
ccllection. 

20* 


234 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 


were  marshalled  by  the  admiral  of  France.  Neither  J«brt 
of  Austria,  the  conqueror  of  Le panto,  nor  Lord  Howard  of 
Effingham,  to  whose  direction  the  marine  of  England  was 
intrusted  when  the  Spanish  invaders  were  approaching  our 
shores,  had  received  the  education  of  a  sailor.  RaU>igh, 
highly  celebrated  as  a  naval  commander,  had  sensed  during 
many  years  as  a  soldier  in  France,  the  Netherlands,  ami  Ire- 
land. Blake  had  distinguished  himself  by  his  skilful  and 
valiant  defence  of  an  inland  town  before  he  humbled  th«  pride 
of  Holland  and  of  Castile  on  the  ocean.  Since  the  Restora- 
tion the  same  system  had  been  followed.  Great  fleets  had 
been  intrusted  to  the  direction  of  Rupert  and  Monk  ;  Rupert, 
who  was  renowned  chiefly  as  a  hot  and  daring  cavahy  officer, 
and  Monk,  who,  when  he  wanted  his  ship  to  tack  to  larboard, 
moved  the  mirth  of  his  crew  by  calling  out, "  Wheel  to  the  left." 
But  about  this  time  wise  men  began  to  perceive  that  the 
rapid  improvement,  both  of  the  art  of  war  and  of  the  art  of 
navigation,  made  it  necessary  to  draw  a  line  between  two 
professions  which  had  hitherto  been  confounaet}.  Either  the 
command  of  a  regiment  or  the  command  of  n  ship  was  now 
a  matter  quite  sufficient  to  occupy  the  attention  of  a  single 
mind.  In  the  year  1672  the  French  government  determined 
to  educate  young  men  of  good  family  from  a  very  early  age 
specially  for  the  sea  service.  But  the  English  government, 
instead  of  following  this  excellent  exampie,  not  only  con- 
tinued to  distribute  high  naval  commands  among  lands 
men,  but  selected  for  such  commands  landsmen  who, 
even  on  land,  could  not  safely  have  been  put  in  any  im- 
portant trust.  Any  lad  of  noble  birth,  any  dissolute  cour- 
tier for  whom  one  of  the  ^king's  mistresses  would  speak  a 
word,  might  hope  that  a  ship  of  the  line,  and  with  it  the  honor 
of  the  country  and  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  brave  men, 
would  be  committed  to  his  care.  It  mattered  not  that  he  had 
never  in  his  life  taken  a  voyage  except  on  the  Thames,  that 
he  could  not  keep  his  feet  in  a  breeze,  that  he  did  not  know 
the  difference  between  latitude  and  longitude.  No  previous 
training  was  thought  necessary  ;  or,  at  most,  he  was  sent  to 
make  a  short  trip  in  a  man  of  war,  where  he  was  subjected  to 
no  discipline,  where  he  was  treated  with  marked  respect,  and 
where  he  lived  in  a  round  of  revels  and  amusements.  If,  in 
the  intervals  of  feasting,  drinking,  and  gambling,  he  succeeded 
m  learning  the  meaning  of  a  few  technical  phrases  and  the 
names  of  the  points  of  the  compass,  he  was  fully  qualified  to 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  235 

take  charge  of  a  three-decker.  This  is  no  imaginary  de- 
scription. In  1666,  John  Sheffield,  Earl  of  Mulgrave,  at 
seventeen  years  of  age,  volunteered  to  serve  at  sea  against 
the  Dutch.  He  passed  six  weeks  on  board,  diverting  him- 
self, as  well  as  he  could,  in  the  society  of  some  young  lib- 
ertines of  rank,  and  then  returned  home  to  take  the  command 
of  a  troop  of  horse.  After  this  he  was  never  on  the  water 
till  the  year  1672,  when  he  again  joined  the  fleet,  and  was 
almost  immediately  appointed  captain  of  a  ship  of  eighty- 
four  guns,  reputed  the  finest  in  the  navy.  He  was  then 
twenty-three  years  old,  and  had  not,  in  the  whole  course 
of  his  life,  been  three  months  afloat.  As  soon  as  he  came 
back  from  sea  he  was  made  colonel  of  a  regiment  of  foot. 
This  is  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  naval  commands  of 
the  highest  importance  were  then  given  ;  and  a  favorable  speci- 
men ;  for  Mulgrave,  though  he  wanted  experience,  wanted 
neither  parts  nor  courage.  Others  were  promoted  in  the  same 
way  who  not  only  were  not  good  officers,  but  who  were 
intellectually  and  morally  incapable  of  ever  becoming  good 
officers,  and  whose  only  recommendation  was  that  they  had 
been  ruined  by  folly  and  vice.  The  chief  bait  which  allured 
these  men  into  the  service  was  the  profit  of  conveying  bullion 
and  other  valuable  commodities  from  port  to  port ;  for  both 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Mediterranean  were  then  so  much  infested 
by  pirates  from  Barbary,  that  merchants  were  not  willing  to 
trust  precious  cargoes  to  any  custody  but  that  of  a  man  of 
war.  A  captain  in  this  way  sometimes  cleared  several 
thousands  of  pounds  by  a  short  voyage  ;  and  for  this  lucrative 
business  he  too  often  neglected  the  interests  of  his  country 
and  the  honor  of  his  flag,  made  mean  submissions  to  foreign 
powers,  disobeyed  the  most  direct  injunctions  of  his  superiors, 
lay  in  port  when  he  was  ordered  to  chase  a  Sallee  rover,  or 
ran  with  dollars  to  Leghorn  when  his  instructions  directed 
him  to  repair  to  Lisbon.  And  all  this  he  did  with  impunity. 
The  same  interest  which  had  placed  him  in  a  post  for  which 
he  was  unfit  maintained  him  there.  No  admiral,  bearded  by 
these  corrupt  and  dissolute  minions  of  the  palace,  dared  to  do 
more  than  mutter  something  about  a  court  martial.  If  any 
officer  showed  a  higher  sense  of  duty  than  his  fellows  he 
soon  found  that  he  lost  money  without  acquiring  honor.  One 
captain  who,  by  strictly  obeying  the  orders  of  the  admiralty, 
missed  a  cars;o  which  would  have  been  worth  four  thousand 


236  HISTORY  or  ENGLAND. 

pounds  to  him,  was  told  by  Crarles,  with  ignoble  levity,  thai 
he  was  a  great  fool  for  his  pains. 

The  discipline  of  the  navy  was  of  a  piece  throughout.  As 
the  courtly  captain  despised  the  admiralty,  he  was  in  turn 
despised  by  his  crew.  It  could  not  be  concealed  that  he  was 
inferior  in  seamanship  to  every  foremast  man  on  board.  It 
was  idle  to  expect  that  old  sailors,  familiar  with  the  hurricanes 
of  the  tropics  and  with  the  icebergs  of  the  Arctic  Circle,  would 
pay  prompt  and  respectful  obedience  to  a  chief  who  kne^v  no 
more  of  winds  and  waves  than  could  be  learned  in  a  gilded  barge 
between  Whitehall  Stairs  and  Hampton  Court.  To  trust  such 
a  novice  with  the  working  of  a  ship  was  evidently  impossible. 
The  direction  of  the  navigation  was  therefore  taken  from  the 
captain  and  given  to  the  master ;  but  this  partition  of  'author- 
ity produced  innumerable  inconveniences.  The  line  of  de- 
marcation was  not,  and  perhaps  could  not  be,  drawn  with 
precision.  There  was  therefore  constant  wrangling.  The 
captain,  confident  in  proportion  to  his  ignorance,  treated  the 
master  with  lordly  contempt.  The  master,  well  aware  of  the 
danger  of  disobliging  the  powerful,  too  often,  after  a  struggle, 
yielded  against  his  better  judgment ;  and  it  was  well  if  the  loss 
of  ship  and  crew  was  not  the  consequence.  In  general,  the 
least  mischievous  of  the  aristocratical  captains  were  those  who 
completely  abandoned  to  others  the  direction  of  their  vessels, 
ajid  thought  only  of  making  money  and  spending  it.  The 
way  in  which  these  men  lived  was  so  ostentatious  and  volup- 
tuous, that,  greedy  as  they  were  of  gain,  they  seldom  became 
rich.  They  dressed  as  if  for  a  gala  at  Versailles,  ate  off 
plate,  drank  the  richest  wines,  and  kept  harems  on  board, 
while  hunger  and  scurvy  raged  among  the  crews,  and  while 
corpses  were  daily  flung  out  of  the  port-holes. 

Such  was  the  ordinary  character  of  those  who  were  then 
called  gentlemen  captains.  Mingled  with  them  were  to  be 
found,  happily  for  our  country,  naval  commanders  of  a  very 
different  description,  men  whose  whole  life  'had  been  passed 
on  the  deep,  and  who  had  worked  and  fought  their  way  from 
the  lowest  offices  of  the  forecastle  to  rank  and  distinction. 
One  of  the  most  eminent  of  these  officers  was  Sir  Christopher 
Mings,  who  entered  the  service  as  a  cabin  boy,  who  fell  fight 
ing  bravely  against  the  Dt  tch,  and  whom  his  crew,  weeping 
and  vowing  vengeance,  carried  to  the  grave.  From  him 
sprang,  by  a  singular  kind  of  descent,  a  line  of  valiant  and 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  237 

expert  sailors.  His  cabin  boy  was  Sir  John  Narborough ;  and 
the  cabin  boy  of  Sir  John  Narborough  was  Sir  Cloudesley 
Shovel.  To  the  strong  natural  sense  and  dauntless  courage 
of  this  class  of  men  England  owes  a  debt  never  to  be  forgot- 
ten. It  was  by  such  resolute  hearts  that,  in  spite  of  much 
maladministration,  and  in  spite  of  the  blunders  of  more  courtly 
admirals,  our  coasts  were  protected  and  the  reputation  of  our 
flag  upheld  during  many  gloomy  and  perilous  years.  But  to 
a  landsman  these  tarpaulins,  as  they  were  called,  seemed  a 
strange  and  half-savage  race.  All  their  knowledge  was  pro- 
fessional ;  and  their  professional  knowledge  was  practical 
rather  than  scientific.  Off  their  own  element  they  were  as 
simple  as  children.  Their  deportment  was  uncouth.  There 
was  roughness  in  their  very  good  nature  ;  and  their  talk, 
where  it  was  not  made  up  of  nautical  phrases,  was  too  com- 
monly made  up  of  oaths  and  curses.  Such  were  the  chiefs 
in  whose  rude  school  were  formed  those  sturdy  warriors  from 
whom  Smollett,  in  the  next  age,  drew  Lieutenant  Bowling  and 
Commodore  Trunnion.  But  it  does  not  appear  that  there  was 
in  the  service  of  any  of  the  Stuarts  a  single  naval  officer  such 
as,  according  to  the  notions  of  our  times,  a  naval  officer  ought 
to  be,  that  is  to  say,  a  man  versed  in  the  theory  and  practice 
of  his  calling,  and  steeled  against  all  the  dangers  of  battle  and 
tempest,  yet  of  cultivated  mind  and  polished  manners.  There 
were  gentlemen  and  there  were  seamen  in  the  navy  of  Charles 
the  Second.  But  the  seamen  were  not  gentlemen ;  and  the 
gentlemen  were  not  seamen. 

The  English  navy  at  that  time  might,  according  to  the  most 
exact  estimates  which  have  come  down  to  us,  have  been  kept 
in  an  efficient  state  for  three  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
pounds  a  year.  Four  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year  was 
the  sum  actually  expended,  but  expended,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
very  little  purpose.  The  cost  of  the  French  marine  was 
nearly  the  same ;  the  cost  of  the  Dutch  marine  considerably 


*  My  information  respecting  the  condition  of  the  navy,  at  this 
time,  is  chiefly  derived  from  Pepys.  His  report,  presented  to  Charles 
the  Second  in  May,  1684,  has  never,  I  believe,  been  printed.  The 
manuscript  is  at  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge.  At  Magdalene 
College  is  also  a  valuable  manuscript  containing  a  detailed  account 
oi<he  maritime  establishments  of  the  country  in  December,  1684. 
Fepys's  "  Memoirs  relating  to  the  State  of  the  Royal  Navy  for  Ten 
Years,  determined  December,  1688,"  and  his  diary  and  correspon- 
dence during  his  mission  to  Tangier,  arc  in  print.  I  have  made  large 


238  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  charge  of  the  English  ordnance  in  the  seventeenth 
century  was,  as  compared  with  other  military  and  naval 
charges,  much  smaller  than  at  present.  At  most  of  the  gar- 
risons there  were  gunners,  and  here  and  there,  at  an  important 
post,  an  engineer  was  to  be  found.  But  there  was  no  regiment 
of  artillery,  no  brigade  of  sappers  and  miners,  no  college  in 
which  young  soldiers  could  learn  the  scientific  part  of  war. 
The  difficulty  of  moving  field  pieces  was  extreme.  When,  a 
few  years  later,  William  marched  from  Devonshire  to  London, 
the  apparatus  which  he  brought  with  him,  though  such  as  had 
long  been  in  constant  use  on  the  Continent,  and  such  as  would 
now  be  regarded  at  Woolwich  as  rude  and  cumbrous,  excited 
in  our  ancestors  an  admiration  resembling  that  which  the 
Indians  of  America  felt-  for  the  Castilian  harquebusses.  The 
stock  of  gunpowder  kept  in  the  English  forts  and  arsenals  was 
boastfully  mentioned  by  patriotic  writers  as  something  which 
might  well  impress  neighboring  nations  with  awe.  It  amounted 
to  fourteen  or  fifteen  thousand  barrels,  about  a  twelfth  of  the 
quantity  which  it  is  now  thought  necessary  to  have  always  in 
store.  The  expenditure  under  the  head  of  Ordnance  was  on 
an  average  a  little  above  sixty  thousand  pounds  a  year.* 

The  whole  effective  charge  of  the  army,  navy,  and  ord- 
nance, was  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds. 
The  non-effective  charge,  which  is  now  a  heavy  part  of  our 
public  burdens,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed.  A  very 
small  number  of  naval  officers,  who  were  not  employed  in  the 
public  service,  drew  half  pay.  No  lieutenant  was  on  the  list, 
nor  any  captain  who  had  not  commanded  a  ship  of  the  first 
or  second  rate.  As  the  country  then  possessed  only  seventeen 
ships  of  the  first  and  second  rate  that  had  ever  been  at  sea, 
and  as  a  large  proportion  of  the  persons  who  had  commanded 
such  ships  had  good  posts  on  shore,  the  expenditure  under  this 
head  must  have  been  small  indeed  .t  In  the  army,  half  pay 

use  of  themr  See  also  Sheffield's  Memoirs,  Teonge's  Diary,  Aubrey's 
Life  of  Monk,  the  Life  of  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel,  1708,  Commons' 
Journals,  March  1  and  March  20,  168f . 

*  Chtaberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684.  Commons'  Journals, 
March  1  and  March  20,  168f .  In  1833  it  was  determined,  after 
full  inquiry,  that  a  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  barrels  of  gun- 
powder should  constantly  be  kept  in  store ;  and  this  rule  is  still 
observed. 

t  It  appears,  from  the  records  of  the  Admiralty,  that  flag  officers 
were  allowed  half  pay  in  1668,  captains  of  fiist  c&d  second  rates  not 
till  1674. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  239 

\ 

was  given  merely  as  a  special  and  temporary  allowance  to  a 
small  number  of  officers  belonging  to  two  regiments,  which 
were  peculiarly  situated.*  Greenwich  Hospital  had  not  been 
founded.  Chelsea  Hospital  was  building  :  but  the  cost  of  that 
institution  was  defrayed  partly  by  a  deduction  from  the  pay 
of  the  troops,  and  partly  by  private  subscription.  The  king 
promised  to  contribute  only  twenty  thousand  pounds  for  archi 
tectural  expenses,  and  five  thousand  a  year  for  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  invalids.!  It  was  no  part  of  the  plan  that  there 
should  be  outpensioners.  The  whole  non-effective  charge, 
military  and  naval,  can  scarcely  have  exceeded  ten  thousand 
pounds  a  year.  It  now  exceeds  ten  thousand  pounds  a  day. 

Of  the  expense  of  civil  government  only  a  small  portion 
was  defrayed  by  the  crown.  The  great  majority  of  the  func- 
tionaries whose  business  was  to  administer  justice  and  preserve 
order  either  gave  their  services  to  the  public  gratuitously,  or 
were  remunerated  in  a  manner  which  caused  no  drain  on  the 
revenue  of  the  state.  The  sheriffs,  mayors,  and  aldermen  of 
the  towns,  the  country  gentlemen  who  were  in  the  commission 
of  the  peace,  the  headboroughs,  bailiffs,  and  petty  constables, 
cost  the  king  nothing.  The  superior  courts  of  law  were 
chiefly  supported  by  fees.  / 

Our  relations  with  foreign  courts  had  been  put  on  the  most 
economical  footing.  The  only  diplomatic  agent  who  had  the 
title  of  ambassador  resided  at  Constantinople,  and  was  partly 
supported  by  the  Turkey  Company.  Even  at  the  court  of 
Versailles  England  had  only  an  envoy  ;  and  she  had  not  even 
an  envoy  at  the  Spanish,  Swedish,  and  Danish  courts.  The 
whole  expense  under  this  head  cannot,  in  the  last  year  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  have  much  exceeded  twenty 
thousand  pounds-! 

In  this  frugality  there  was  nothing  laudable.  Charles  was, 
as  usual,  niggardly  in  the  wrong  place,  and  munificent  in  the 
wrong  place.  The  public  service  was  starved  that  courtiers 
might  be  pampered.  The  expense  of  the  navy,  of  the  ord- 
nance,'of  pensions  to  needy  old  officers,  of  missions  to  foreign 

*  Warrant  in  the  War  Office  Records,  dated  March  26,  1678. 

t  Evelyn's  Diary,  Jan.  27,  1682.  I  have  seen  a  privy  seal,  dated 
May  17,  1683,  which  confirms  Evelyn's  testimony. 

J  James  the  Second  sent  envoys  to  Spain,  Sweden,  and  Denmark, 
yet  in  his  reign  the  diplomatic  expenditure  was  little  more  than 
30,000?.  a  year.  See  the  Commons'  Journals,  March  20,  168f .  Cham- 
berlavne's  State  of  England,  1684,  1686. 


240  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

courts,  must  seem  small  indeed  to  the  present  generation. 
But  the  personal  favorites  of  the  sovereign,  his  ministers,  and 
the  creatures  of  those  ministers,  were  gorged  with  public 
money.  Their  salaries  and  pensions,  when  compared  with 
the  incomes  of  the  nobility,  the  gentry,  the  commercial  and 
professional  men  of  that  age,  will  appear  enormous.  The 
greatest  estates  in  the  kingdom  then  very  little  exceeded 
twenty  thousand  a  year.  The  Duke  of  Ormond  had  twenty- 
two  thousand  a  year.*  The  Duke  of  Buckingham,  before  his 
extravagance  had  impaired  his  great  property,  had  nineteen 
thousand  six  hundred  a  year.t  George  Monk,  Duke  of  Al- 
bemarle,  who  had  been  rewarded  for  his  eminent  services 
with  immense  grants  of  crown  land,  and  who  had  been  noto- 
rious both  for  covetousness  and  for  parsimony,  left  fifteen 
thousand  a  year  of  real  estate,  and  sixty  thousand  pounds  in 
money  which  probably  yielded  seven  per  cent.!  These  three 
dukes  were  supposed  to  be  three  of  the  very  richest  subjects 
in  England.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  can  hardly  have 
had  five  thousand  a  year.§  The  average  income  of  a  tem- 
poral peer  was  estimated,  by  the  best  informed  persons,  at 
about  three  thousand  a  year,  the  average  income  of  a  baronet 
at  nine  hundred  a  year,  the  average  income  of  a  member  of 
parliament  at  less  than  eight  hundred  a  year.||  A  thousand 
a  year  was  thought  a  large  revenue  for  a  barrister.  Two 
thousand  a  year  was  hardly  to  be  made  in  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench,  except  by  the  crown  lawyers.^  It  is  evident, 
therefore,  that  an  official  man  would  have  been  well  paid  if 
he  had  received  a  fourth  or  fifth  part  of  what  would  now  be 

*  Carte's  Life  of  Ormond. 

t  Pepys's  Diary,  Feb.  14,  166f . 

j  See  the  report  of  the  Bath,  and  Montague  case,  which  was  de- 
cided by  Lord  Keeper  Somers,  in  December,  1693. 

§  During  three  quarters  of  a  year,  beginning  from  Christmas,  1689 
the  revenues  of  the  see  of  Canterbury  were  received  by  an  officer 
appointed  by  the  crown.  That  officer's  accounts  are  now  in  the 
British  Museum.  (Lansdowne  MSS.  885.)  The  gross  revenue  for 
the  three  quarters  was  not  quite  four  thousand  pounds ;  and  the 
difference  between  the  gross  and  the  net  revenue  was  evidently 
something  considerable. 

||  King's  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions.  Davenant  on  the 
Balance  of  Trade.  Sir  W.  Temple  says,  "  The  revenues  of  a  House 
of  Commons  have  seldom  exceeded  four  hundred  thousand  pounds." 
Memoirs,  Third  Part. 

1F  Langton's  Conversations  with  Chief  Justice  Hale,  1672. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  241 

i 

an  adequate  stipend.  In  fact,  however,  the  stipends  of  the 
higher  class  of  official  men  were  as  large  as  at  present,  and 
not  seldom  larger.  The  lord  treasurer,  for  example,  had 
eight  thousand  a  year,  and,  when  the  Treasury  was  in  com- 
mission, the  junior  lords  had  sixteen  hundred  a  year  each. 
The  paymaster  of  the  forces  had  a  poundage,  amounting  to 
about  five  thousand  a  year,  on  all  the  money  which  passed 
through  his  hands.  The  groom  of  the  stole  had  five  thousand 
a  year,  the  commissioners  of  the  customs  twelve  hundred  a 
year  each,  the  lords  of  the  bedchamber  a  thousand  a  year 
each.*  The  regular  salary,  however,  was  the  smallest  part 
of  the  gains  of  an  official  man  of  that  age.  From  the  noble- 
men who  held  the  white  staff  and  the  great  seal,  down  to  the 
humblest  tidewaiter  and  gauger,  what  would  now  be  called 
gross  corruption  was  practised  without  disguise  and  without 
reproach.  Titles,  places,  commissions,  pardons,  were  daily 
sold  in  market  overt  by  the  great  dignitaries  of  the  realm  ; 
and  every  clerk  in  every  department  imitated,  to  the  best  of 
his  power,  the  evil  example. 

During  the  last  century  no  prime  minister,  however  power- 
ful, has  become  rich  in  office,  and  several  prime  ministers 
have  impaired  their  private  fortune  in  sustaining  their  public 
character.  In  the  seventeenth  century  a  statesman  who  "was 
at  the  head  of  affairs  might  easily,  and  without  giving  scan- 
dal, accumulate  in  no  long  time  an  estate  amply  sufficient  to 
support  a  dukedom.  It  is  probable  that  the  income  of  the 
prime  minister,  during  his  tenure  of  power,  far  exceeded 
that  of  any  other  subject.  The  place  of  lord  lieutenant  of 
Ireland  was  supposed  to  be  worth  forty  thousand  pounds  a 
year.t  The  gains  of  the  Chancellor  Clarendon,  of  Arling- 
ton, of  Lauderdale,  and  of  Danby,  were  enormous.  The 
sumptuous  palace  to  which  the  populace  of  London  gave  the 
name  of  Dunkirk  house,  the  stately  pavilions,  the  fishponds, 
the  deer  park  and  the  orangery  of  Euston,  the  more  than 
Italian  luxury  of  Ham,  with  its  busts,  fountains,  and  aviaries, 
were  among  the  many  signs  which  indicated  what  was  the 
shortest  road  to  boundless  wealth.  This  is  the  true  explana- 
tion of  the  unscrupulous  violence  with  which  the  statesmen 
of  that  day  struggled  for  office,  of  the  tenacity  with  which, 
in  spite  of  vexations,  humiliations,  and  dangers,  they  clung  to 

*  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684. 
t  See  the  Travels  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo. 
VOL.  I.  21 


242  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

it,  and  of  the  scandalous  compliance^  to  which  they  stooped 
in  order  to  retain  it.  Even  in  our  own  age,  great  as  is  the 
power  of  opinion,  and  high  as  is  the  standard  of  integrity, 
there  would  be  great  risk  of  a  lamentable  change  in  the  char- 
acter of  our  public  men,  if  the  place  of  first  lord  of  the 
Treasury  or  secretary  of  state  were  worth  a  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  a  year.  Happily  for  our  country  the  emoluments 
of  the  highest  class  of  functionaries  have  not  only  not  grown 
in  proportion  to  the  general  growth  of  our  opulence,  but  have 
positively  diminished. 

The  fact  that  the  sum  raised  in  England  by  taxation  has, 
in  a  time  not  exceeding  two  long  lives,  been  multiplied  thirty- 
fold,  is  strange,  and  may  at  first  sight  seem  appalling.  But  those 
who  are  alarmed  by  the  increase  of  the  public  burdens  may 
perhaps  be  reassured  when  they  have  considered  the  increase 
of  the  public  resources.  In  the  year  1685  the  value  of  the 
produce  of  the  soil  far  exceeded  the  value  of  all  the  other 
fruits  of  human  industry.  Yet  agriculture  was  in  what  would 
now  be  considered  as  a  very  rude  and  imperfect  state.  The 
arable  land  and  pasture  land  were  not  supposed  by  the  best 
political  arithmeticians  of  that  age  to  amount  to  much  more 
than  half  the  area  of  the  kingdom.*  The  remainder  was 
believed  to  consist  of  moor,  forest,  and  fen.  These  computa- 
tions are  strongly  confirmed  by  the  road  books  and  maps  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  From  those  books  and  maps  it  is 
clear  that  many  routes  which  now  pass  through  an  endless 
succession  of  orchards,  hay-fields,  and  bean-fields,  then  ran 
through  nothing  but  heath,  swamp,  and  warren.t  In  the 
drawings  of  English  landscapes  made  in  that  age  for  the 
Grand  Duke  Cosmo,  scarce  a  hedgerow  is  to  be  seen,  and 
numerous  tracts,  now  rich  with  cultivation,  appear  as  bare  as 
Salisbury  Plain.J  At  Enfield,  hardly  out  of  sight  of  the 
smoke  of  the  capital,  was  a  region  of  five  and  twenty  miles 

*  King's  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions.  Davcnant  on  the 
Balance  of  Trade. 

t  See  the  Itinerarnm  Angliae,  1675,  by  John  Ogilby,  Coamographer 
RoyaL  In  some  of  his  maps  the  roads  through  enclosed  country 
are  marked  by  lines,  and  the  roads  through  unenclosed  country  by 
dots.  The  proportion  of  unenclosed  country  seems  to  have  been  very 
great.  From  Abingdon  to  Gloucester,  for  example,  a  distance  of 
forty  or  fifty  miles,  there  was  not  a  single  enclosure,  and  scarcely  one 
enclosure  between  Biggleswade  and  Lincoln. 

J  Large  copies  of  these  highly  interesting  drawings  are  in  the 
noble  collection  bequeathed  by  Mr.  Grenville  to  the  British  Museum 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  243 

in  circumference,  which  contained  only  three  houses  and 
scarcely  any  enclosed  Helds.  Deer,  as  free  as  in  an  American 
forest,  wandered  thera  by  thousands.*  It  is  to  be  remarked 
that  wild  animals  of  large  size  were  then  far  more  numerous 
than  at  present.  The  last  wild  boars,  indeed,  which  had 
been  preserved  for  the  royal  diversion,  and  had  been  allowed 
to  ravage  the  cultivated  land  with  their  tusks,  had  been 
slaughtered  by  the  exasperated  rustics  during  the  license  of 
the  civil  war.  The  last  wolf  that  has  roamed  our  island  had 
been  slain  in  Scotland  a  short  time  before  the  close  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  But  many  breeds,  now  extinct 
or  rare,  both  of  quadrupeds  and  birds,  were  still  common. 
The  fox,  whose  life  is,  in  many  counties,  held  almost  as  sacred 
as  that  of  a  human  being,  was  considered  as  a  mere  nuisance. 
Oliver  St.  John  told  the  Long  Parliament  that  StrafFord  was  to 
be  regarded,  not  as  a  stag  or  a  hare,  to  whom  some  law  was 
to  be  given,  but  as  a  fox,  who  was  to  be  snared  by  any 
means,  and  knocked  on  the  head  without  pity.  This  illustra 
tion  would  be  by  no  means  a  happy  one,  if  addressed  is 
country  gentlemen  of  our  time  ;  but  in  St.  John's  days  there 
were  not  seldom  great  massacres  of  foxes  to  which  the 
peasantry  thronged  with  all  the  dogs  that  could  be  mustered  ; 
traps  were  set ;  nets  were  spread  ;  no  quarter  was  given  ; 
and  to  shoot  a  female  with  cub  was  considered  as  a  feat 
which  merited  the  gratitude  of  the  neighborhood.  The  red 
deer  were  then  as  common  in  Gloucestershire  and  Hampshire 
as  they  now  are  among  the  Grampian  Hills.  On  one  oc- 
casion Queen  Anne,  on  her  way  to  Portsmouth,  saw  a  herd 
of  no  less  than  five  hundred.  The  wild  bull  with  his  white 
mane  was  still  to  be  found  wandering  in  a  few  of  the  southern 
forests.  The  badger  made  his  dark  and  tortuous  hole  on  the 
side  of  every  hill  where  the  copsewood  grew  thick.  The 
wild  cats  were  frequently  heard  by  night  wailing  round 
the  lodges  of  the  rangers  of  Whittlebury  and  Needwood. 
The  yellow-breasted  martin  was  still  pursued  in  Cranbourne 
Chase  for  his  fur,  reputed  inferior  only  to  that  of  the  sable. 
Fen  eagles,  measuring  more  than  nine  feet  between  the 
extremities  of  the  wings,  preyed  on  fish  along  the  coast  of 
Norfolk.  On  all  the  downs,  from  the  British  Channel  to 
Yorkshire,  huge  bustards  strayed  in  troops  of  fifty  or  sixty, 
and  were  often  hunted  with  greyhounds.  The  marshes  of 

• 
*  Evelyn's  Diary,  June  2,  1675. 


244  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Cambridgeshire  and  Lincolnshire  were  covered  during  some 
months  of  every  year  by  immense  clouds  of  cranes.  Some 
of  these  races  thi:  progress  of  cultivation  has  extirpated. 
Of  others  the  numbers  are  so  much  diminished  that  men 
crowd  to  gaze  at  a  specimen  as  at  a  Bengal  tiger,  or  a  Polar 
bear.* 

The  progress  of  this  great  change  can  nowhere  be  more 
clearly  traced  than  in  the  Statute  Book.  The  number  of 
enclosure  acts  passed  since  King  George  the  Second  came  to 
the  throne  exceeds  four  thousand.  The  area  enclosed  under 
the  authority  of  those  acts  exceeds,  on  a  moderate  calculation, 
ten  thousand  square  miles.  How  many  square  miles  which 
formerly  lay  waste  have,  during  the  same  period,  been  fenced 
and  carefully  tilled  by  the  proprietors,  without  any  application 
to  the  legislature,  can  only  be  conjectured.  But  it  seems 
highly  probable  that  a  fourth  part  of  England  has  been,  in 
the  course  of  little  more  than  a  century,  turned ,  from  a  wild 
into  a  garden. 

Even  in  those  parts  of  the  kingdom  which  at  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  were  the  best  cultivated,  the 
farming,  though  greatly  improved  since  the  civil  war,  was 
not  such  as  would  now  be  thought  skilful.  To  this  day  no 
effectual  steps  have  been  taken  by  public  authority  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  accurate  accounts  of  the  produce  of  the 
English  soil.  The  historian  must  therefore  follow,  with  some 
misgivings,  the  guidance  of  those  writers  on  statistics  whose  rep- 
utation for  diligence  and  fidelity  stands  highest.  At  present  an 
average  crop  of  wheat,  rye,  barley,  oats,  and  beans,  is  supposed 
considerably  to  exceed  thirty  millions  of  quarters.  The  crop 
of  wheat  would  be  thought  poor  if  it  did  not  exceed  twelve 
millions  of  quarters.  According  to  the  computation  made  in 
the  year  1696  by  Gregory  King,  the  whole  quantity  of  wheat, 
rye,  barley,  oats,  and  beans  then  annually  grown  in  the  king- 
dom, was  somewhat  less  than  ten  millions  of  quarters.  The 
wheat,  which  was  then  cultivated  only  on  the  strongest  clay, 
and  consumed  only  by  those  who  were  in  easy  circumstances, 
he  estimated  at  less  than  -two  millions  of  quarters.  Charles 

*  See  White's  Selborne;  Bell's  History  of  British  Quadrupeds; 
Gentleman's  Recreation,  1686 ;  Aubrey's  Natural  History  of  Wilt- 
uhire,  1685 ;  Morten's  History  of  Northamptonshire,  1712 ;  Wil- 
loughby's  Ornithology,  by  Ilay^  1678 ;  Latham's  General  Synopsis 
of  Birds ;  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne'}  Account  of  Birds  found  in 
Norfolk. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  245 

Davenant,  an  acute  and  well-informed,  though  most  un- 
principled and  rancorous,  politician,  differed  from  King  as  to 
some  of  the  items  of  the  account,  but  came  to  nearly  the 
same  general  conclusions.* 

The  rotation  of  crops  was  very  imperfectly  understood. 
It  was  known,  indeed,  that  some  vegetables  lately  introduced 
into  our  island,  particularly  the  turnip,  afforded  excellent 
nutriment  in  winter  to  sheep  and  oxen  ;  but  it  was  not  yet 
the  practice  to  feed  cattle  in  this  manner.  It  was  therefore 
by  no  means  easy  to  keep  them  alive  during  the  season  when 
the  grass  is  scanty.  They  were  killed  in  great  numbers,  and 
salted  at  the  beginning  of  the  cold  weather ;  and,  during  several 
months,  even  the  gentry  tasted  scarcely  any  fresh  animal  food, 
except  game  and  river  fish,  which  were  consequently  much 
more  important  articles  in  housekeeping  than  at  present.  It 
appears  from  the  Northumberland  Household  Book  that,  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  fresh  meat  was  never  eaten 
even  by  the  gentlemen  attendant  on  a  great  earl,  except 
during  the  short  interval  between  Midsummer  and  Michaelmas. 
But  in  the  course  of  two  centuries  an  improvement  had  taken 
place  ;  and  under  Charles  the  Second  it  was  not  till  the 
beginning  of  November  that  families  laid  in  their  stock  of  salt 
provisions,  then  called  Martinmas  beef.t 

The  sheep  and  the  ox  of  that  time  were  diminutive  when 
compared  with  the  sheep  and  oxen  which  are  now  driven  to 
our  markets.^  Our  native  hors.es,  though  serviceable,  were 
held  in  small  esteem,  and  fetched  low  prices.  They  were 
valued,  one  with  another,  by  the  ablest  of  those  who  computed 
the  national  wealth,  at  not  more  than  fifty  shillings  each. 
Foreign  breeds  were  greatly  preferred.  Spanish  jennets 
were  regarded  as  the  finest  chargers,  and  were  imported  for 
purposes  of  pageantry  and  war.  The  coaches  of  the  aristoc- 
racy were  drawn  by  gray  Flemish  mares,  which  trotted,  as  it 
was  thought,  with  a  peculiar  grace,  and  endured  better  than 
any  cattle  reared  in  our  island  the  work  of  dragging  a  pon- 
derous equipage  over  the  rugged  pavement  of  London.  Neither 
the  modern  dray  horse  nor  the  modern  race  horse  was  then 
known.  At  a  much  later  period  the  ancestors  of  the  gigantic 

*  King's  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions ;  Davenant  on  the 
Balance  of  Trade. 

t  See  the  Almanacs  of  1684  and  1685. 

I  See  Mr.  M'Culloch's  Statistical  Account  of  the  British  Empire 
Part  III.  chap.  i.  sec.  6. 

21 » 


26  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

quadrupeds,  which  all  foreigners  now  class  among  the  chief 
wonders  of  London,  were  brought  from  the  marshes  of  Wal- 
cheren ;  the  ancestors  of  Childers  and  Eclipse  from  the 
sands  of  Arabia.  Already,  however,  there  was  among  our 
nobility  and  gentry  a  passion  for  the  amusements  of  the  turf. 
The  importance  of  improving  our  studs  by  an  infusion  of  new 
blood  was  strongly  felt ;  and  with  this  view  a  considerable 
number  of  barbs  had  lately  been  brought  into  the  country. 
Two  men  whose  authority  on  such  subjects  was  held  in  great 
esteem,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  Sir  John  Fenwick,  pro- 
nounced that  the  meanest  hack  ever  imported  from  Tangier 
would  produce  a  finer  progeny  than  could  be  expected  from- 
the  best  sire  of  our  native  breed.  They  would  not  readily 
have  believed  that  a  time  would  come  when  the  princes  and 
nobles  of  neighboring  lands  would  be  as  eager  to  obtain 
horses  from  England  as  ever  the  English  had  been  to  obtain 
horses  from  Barbary.* 

The  increase  of  vegetable  and  animal  produce,  though 
great,  seems  small  when  compared  with  the  increase  of  our 
mineral  wealth.  In  1685  the  tin  of  Cornwall,  which  had, 
more  than  two  thousand  years  before,  attracted  the  Tyrian 
sails  beyond  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  was  still  one  of  the  mos< 
valuable  subterranean  productions  of  the  island.  The  quantity 
annually  extracted  from  the  earth  was  found  to  be,  some  years 
later,  sixteen  hundred  tons,  probably  about  a  third  of  what  it 
now  is.t  But  the  veins  of  copper  which  lie  in  the  same 
region  were,  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second,  altogether 
neglected,  nor  did  any  land-owner  take  them  into  the  account 
in  estimating  the  value  of  his  property.  Cornwall  and  Wales 
at  present  yield  annually  near  fifteen  thousand  tons  of  copper, 
worth  near  a  million  and  a  half  sterling,  that  is  to  say,  worth 
about  twice  as  much  as  the  annual  produce  of  all  English 
mines  of  all  descriptions  in  the  seventeenth  century.|  The 

*  King  and  Davenant,  as  before ;  The  Duke  of  Newcastle  on 
Horsemanship;  Gentleman's  Recreation,  1686.  The  "dappled 
Flanders  mares  "  were  marks  of  greatness  in  the  time  of  Pope,  and 
even  later. 

The  vulgar  proverb  that  the  gray  mare  is  the  better  horse,  originat- 
ed, I  suspect,  in  the  preference  generally  given  to  the  gray  mares  of 
Flanders  over  the  finest  coach  horses  of  England. 

t  See  a  curious  note  by  Tonkin,  in  Lord  De  Dunstanville's  edi- 
tion of  Carew's  Survey  of  Cornwall. 

I  Borlase's  Natural  History  of  Cornwall,  1758.  The  quantity  of 
copper  now  produced,  I  have  taken  from  parliamentary  returns. 


HISTORY    OF     ENGLAND.  247 

first  bed  of  rock  salt  had  been  discovered  not  long  after  the 
Restoration  in  Cheshire,  but  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
worked  in  that  age.  The  salt  which  was  obtained  by  a  rude  pro- 
cess from  brine  pits  was  held  in  no  high  estimation.  The  pans 
in  which  the  manufacture  was  carried  on  exhaled  a  sulphurous 
stench  ;  and,  when  the  evaporation  was  complete,  the  sub- 
stance which  was  left  was  scarcely  fit  to  be  used  with  food. 
Physicians  attributed  the  scorbutic  and  pulmonary  complaints 
which  were  common  among  the  English  to  this  unwholesome 
condiment.  It  was  therefore  seldom  used  by  the  upper  and 
middle  classes ;  and  there  was  a  regular  and  considerable 
importation  from  France.  At  present  our  springs  and  mines 
not  only  supply  our  own  immense  demand,  but  send  annually 
seven  hundred  millions  of  pounds  of  excellent  salt  to  foreign 
countries.* 

Far  more  important  has  been  the  improvement  of  our  iron 
works.  Such  works  had  long  existed  in  our  island,  but  had 
not  prospered,  and  had  been  regarded  with  no  favorable  eye 
by  the  government  and  by  the  public.  It  was  not  then  the 
practice  to  employ  coal  for  smelting  the  ore  ;  and  the  rapid 
consumption  of  wood  excited  the  alarm  of  politicians.  As 
early  as  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  there  had  been  loud  complaints 
that  whole  forests  were  cut  down  for  the  purpose  of  feeding 
the  furnaces ;  and  the  parliament  had  interfered  to  prohibit 
the  manufacturers  from  burning  timber.  The  manufacture 
consequently  languished.  At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second,  great  part  of  the  iron  which  was  used  in  the 
country  was  imported  from  abroad ;  and  the  whole  quantity 
cast  here  annually  seems  not  to  have  exceeded  ten  thousand 
tons.  At  present  the  trade  is  thought  to  be  in  a  depressed 
state  if  less  than  eight  hundred  thousand  tons  are  produced 
in  a  year.f 

One  mineral,  perhaps  more  important  than  iron  itself, 
remains  to  be  mentioned.  Coal,  though  very  little  used  in 
any  species  of  manufacture,  was  already  the  ordinary  fuel 

Davenant,  in  1700,  estimated  the  annual  produce  of  all  the  mines  of 
England  between  seven  and  eight  hundred  thousand  pounds. 

*  Philosophical  Transactions,  No.  53,  Nov.  1669,  No.  66,  Dec. 
1670,  No.  103,  May,  1674,  No.  156,  Feb.  168£. 

t  Yarranton,  England's  Improvement  by  Sea  and  Land,  1677; 
Porter's  Progress  of  the  Nation.  See  also  a  remarkably  perspicuous 
history,  in  small  compass,  of  the  English  iron  works,  in  Mr.  M'Cul- 
loo.h's  Statistical  Account  of  the  British  Empire. 


248  HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND. 

in  some  districts  which  were  fortunate  enough  to  possess 
large  beds,  and  in  the  capital,  which  could  easily  be  supplied 
by  water  carriage.  It  seems  reasonable  to  believe  that  at 
least  one  half  of  the  quantity  then  extracted  from  the  pits  was 
consumed  in  London.  The  consumption  of  London  seemed 
to  the  writers  of  that  age  enormous,  and  was  often  mentioned 
by  1  hem  as  a  proof  of  the  greatness  of  the  imperial  city. 
They  scarcely  hoped  to  be  believed  when  they  affirmed  that 
two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  chaldrons,  that  is  to  say, 
about  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  tons,  were,  in  the  last 
year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  brought  to  the 
Thames.  At  present  -near  three  millions  and  a  half  of  tons 
are  required  yearly  by  the  metropolis  ;  and  the  whole  annual 
produce  cannot,  on  the  most  moderate  computation,  be 
estimated  at  less  than  twenty  millions  of  tons.* 

While  these  great  changes  have  been  in  progress,  the  rent 
of  land  has,  as  might  be  expected,  been  almost  constantly 
rising.  In  some  districts  it  has  multiplied  more  than  tenfold. 
In  some  it  has  not  more  than  doubled.  It  has  probably,  on 
the  average,  quadrupled. 

Of  the  rent,  a  large  proportion  was  divided  among  the 
country  gentlemen,  a  class  of  persons  whose  position  and 
character  it  is  most  important  that  we  should  clearly  under- 
stand ;  for  by  their  influence  and  by  their  passions  the  fate 
of  the  nation  was,  at  several  important  conjunctures,  deter- 
mined. 

We  should  be  much  mistaken  if  we  pictured  to  ourselves 
the  squires  of  the  seventeenth  century  as  men  bearing  a  close 
resemblance  to  their  descendants,  the  county  members  and 
chairmen  of  quarter  sessions  with  whom  we  are  familiar. 
The  modern  country  gentleman  generally  receives  a  liberal 
education,  passes  from  a  distinguished  school  to  a  distinguished 
college,  and  has  every  opportunity  to  become  an  excellent 
scholar.  He  has  generally  seen  something  of  foreign  coun- 
tries. A  considerable  part  of  his  life  has  generally  been  passed 
in  the  capital ;  and  the  refinements  of  the  capital  follow  him 
into  the  country.  There  is  perhaps  no  class  of  dwellings  so 
oleasing  as  the  rural  seats  of  the  English  gentry.  In  the 
parks  and  pleasure-grounds,  nature,  dressed  yet  not  &sguised 

*  See  Chamberlaync's  State  of  England,  1684,  1686;  Anglise 
Metropolis,  1691.  In  1845  the  quantity  of  coal  brought  into  London 
appeared,  by  the  parliamentary  returns,  to  be  3,460,000  tons. 


HISTORY    OP     KNOLANi).  949 

toy  art,  wears  her  almost  alluring  form.  In  the  buildings  good 
sense  and  good  taste  combine  to  produce  a  happy  union  6f 
the  comfortable  and  the  graceful.  The  pictures,  the  musical 
instruments,  the  library,  would  in  any  other  country  be  con- 
sidered as  proving  the  owner  to  be  an  eminently  polished 
and  accomplished  man.  A  country  gentleman  who  witnessed 
the  Revolution  was  probably  in  receipt  of  about  a  fourth  part 
of  the  rent  which  his  acres  now  yield  to  his  posterity.  He 
was,  therefore,  as  compared  with  his  posterity,  a  poor  man, 
and  was  generally  under  the  necessity  of  residing,  with  little 
interruption,  on  his  estate.  To  travel  on  the  Continent,  to 
maintain  an  establishment  in  London,  or  even  to  visit  London 
frequently,  were  pleasures  in  which  only  the  great  proprietors 
could  indulge.  It  may  be  confidently  affirmed  that  of  the  squires 
whose  names  were  in  King  Charles's  commissions  oi  peace 
and  lieutenancy  not  one  in  twenty  went  to  town  once  in  five 
years,  or  had  ever  in  his  life  wandered  so  far  as  Paris.  Many 
lords  of  manors  had  received  an  education  differing  little  from 
that  of  their  menial  servants.  The  heir  of  an  estate  often 
passed  his  boyhood  and  youth  at  the  seat  of  his  family  with 
no  better  tutors  than  grooms  and  gamekeepers,  and  scarce 
attained  learning  enough  to  sign  his  name  to  a  mittimus.  If 
he  went  to  school  and  to  college,  he  generally  returned  before 
he  was  twenty  to  the  seclusion  of  the  old  hall,  and  there,  un- 
less his  mind  were  very  happily  constituted  by  nature,  soon 
forgot  his  academical  pursuits  in  rural  business  and  pleasures. 
His  chief  serious  employment  was  the  care  of  his  property. 
He  examined  samples  of  grain,  handled  pigs,  and  on  market 
days  made  bargains  over  a  tankard  with  drovers  and  hop 
merchants.  His  chief  pleasures  were  commonly  derived  from 
field  sports  and  from  an  unrefined  sensuality.  His  language 
and  pronunciation  were  such  as  we  should  now  expect  to  hear 
only  from  the  most  ignorant  clowns.  His  oaths,  coarse  jssts, 
and  scurrilous  terms  of  abuse,  were  uttered  with  the  broadest 
accent  of  his  province.  It  was  easy  to  discern,  from  the  first 
words  which  he  spoke,  whether  he  came  from  Somersetshire 
or  Yorkshire.  He  troubled  himself  little  about  decorating  his 
*l\ode,  and,  if  he  attempted  decoration,  seldom  produced  any 
thing  but  deformity.  The  litter  of  a  farm-yard  gathered  un- 
der the  windows  of  his  bedchamber,  and  the  cabbages  and 
gooseberry  bushes  grew  close  to  his  hall  door.  His  table  was 
'oaded  with  coarse  plenty ;  and  guests  were  cordially  wel- 
comed to  it.  But,  as  the  habit  of  drinking  to  excess  was  gen- 

21* 


250  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAN0        . 

eral  in  the  class  to  which  he  belonged,  and  as  his  fortune  did 
not  enable  him  to  intoxicate  large  assemblies  daily  with  claret 
or  canary,  strong  beer  was  the  ordinary,  beverage.  The 
quantity  of  beer  consumed  in  those  days  was  indeed  enor- 
mous. For  beer  then  was  to  the  middle  and  lower  classes^ 
noj  only  all  that  beer  now  is,  but  all  that  wine,  tea,  and  ardent 
spirits  now  are.  It  was  only  at  great  houses,  or  on  great 
occasions,  that  foreign  drink  was  placed  on  the  board.  The 
ladies  of  the  house,  whose  business  it  had  commonly  been  to 
cook  the  repast,  retired  as  soon  as  the  dishes  had  been  de- 
voured, and  left  the  gentlemen  to  their  ale  and  tobacco.  The 
coarse  jollity  of  the  afternoon  was  often  prolonged  till  the 
revellers  were  laid  under  the  table. 

It  was  very  seldom  that  the  country  gentleman  caught 
glimps^p  of  the  great  world  ;  and  what  he  saw  of  it  tended 
rather  to  confuse  than  to  enlighten  his  understanding.  His 
opinions  respecting  religion,  government,  foreign  countries, 
and  former  times,  having  been  derived,  not  from  study,  from 
observation,  or  from  conversation  with  enlightened  compan- 
ions, but  from  such  traditions  as  were  current  in  his  own  small 
circle,  were  the  opinions  of  a  child.  He  adhered  to  them 
however,  with  the  obstinacy  which  is  generally  found  in 
ignorant  men  accustomed  to  be  fed  with  flattery.  His  ani- 
mosities were  numerous  and  bitter.  He  hated  Frenchmen 
and  Italians,  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen,  Papists  and  Presbyte- 
rians, Independents  and  Baptists,  Quakers  and  Jews.  To- 
wards London  and  Londoners -he  felt  an  aversion  which  more 
than  once  produced  important  political  effects.  His  wife  and 
daughter  were  in  tastes  and  acquirements  below  a  housekeeper 
or  a  stillroom  maid  of  the  present  day.  They  stitched  and 
spun,  brewed  gooseberry  wine,  cured  marigolds,  and  made  the 
crust  for  the  venison  pasty. 

From  this  description  it  might  be  supposed  that  the  Eng- 
lish esquire  of  the  seventeenth  century  did  not  materially 
differ  from  a  rustic  miller  or  alehouse  keeper  of  our  time 
There  are,  however,  some  important  parts  of  his  character 
still  to  be  noted,  which  will  greatly  modify  this  estimate.  Un- 
lettered as  he  was  and  unpolished,  he  was  still  in  some  most 
important  points  a  gentleman.  He  was  a  member  of  a  proud 
and  powerful  aristocracy,  and  was  distinguished  by  many  both 
of  the  good  and  of  the  bad  qualities  which  belong  to  aristo- 
crats. His  family  pride  was  beyond  that  of  a  Talbot  or  a 
Howard.  He  knew  the  genealogies  and  coats  of  arms  of  all 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  251 

his  neighbors,  and  could  tell  which  of  them  had  assumed  sup- 
porters without  any  right,  and  which  of  thenr  were  so  unfortu- 
nate as  to  be  great  grandsons  of  aldermen.  He  was  a  magis- 
trate, and,  as  such,  administered  gratuitously  to  those  who 
dwelt  around  him  a  rude  patriarchal  justice,  which,  in  s'pite 
of  innumerable  blunders  and  of  occasional  acts  of  tyranny, 
was  yet  better  than  no  justice  at  all.  He  was  an  officer  of 
the  trainbands ;  and  his  military  dignity,  though  it  might  move 
the  mirth  of  gallants  who  had  served  a  campaign  in  Flanders, 
raised  his  character  in  his  own  eyes  and  in  the  eyes  of  his 
neighbors.  Nor  indeed  was  his  soldiership  justly  a  subject 
of  derision.  In  every  county  there  were  elderly  gentlemen 
who  had  seen  service  which  was  no  child's  play.  One  had 
been  knighted  by  Charles  the  First,  after  the  battle  of  Edge 
hrll.  Another  still  wore  a  patch  over  the  scar  which  he  had 
received  at  Naseby.  A  third  had  defended  his  old  house  till 
Fairfax  had  blown  in  the  door  with  a  petard.  The  presence 
of  these  old  Cavaliers,  with  their  old  swords  and  holsters,  and 
with  their  old  stories  about  Goring  and  Lunsford,  gave  to  the 
musters  of  militia  an  earnest  and  warlike  aspect  which  would 
otherwise  have  been  wanting.  Even  those  country  gentle- 
men who  were  too  young  to  have  themselves  exchanged 
blows  with  the  cuirassiers  of  the  parliament  had,  from  child- 
hood, been  surrounded  by  the  traces  of  recent  war,  and  fed 
with  stories  of  the  martial  exploits  of  their  fathers  and  uncles. 
Thus  the  character  of  the  English  esquire  of  the  seventeenth 
century  was  compounded  of  two  elements  which  we  are  not 
accustomed  to  find  united.  His  ignorance  and  uncouthness, 
his  low  tastes  and  gross  phrases,  would,  in  our  time,  be  con- 
sidered as  indicating  a  nature  and  a  breeding  thoroughly 
plebeian.  Yet  he  was  essentially  a  patrician,  and  had,  in  large 
measure,  both  the  virtues  and  the  vices  which  flourish  among 
men  set  from  their  birth  in  high  place,  and  accustomed  to 
authority,  to  observance,  and  to  self-respect.  It  is  not  easy 
for  a  generation  which  is  accustomed  to  find  chivalrous  senti-. 
ments  only  in  company  with  liberal  studies  and  polished  man- 
ners to  imagine  to  itself  a  man  with  the  deportment,  the 
vocabulary,  and  the  accent  of  a  carter,  yet  punctilious  on 
matters  of  genealogy  and  precedence,  and  ready  to  risk  his 
life  rather  than  see  a  stain  cast  on  the  honor  of  his  house. 
It  is  only,  however,  by  thus  joining  together  things  seldom  or 
never  found  together  in  our  own  experience,  that  we  can  form 
8  just  idea  of  that  rustic  aristocracy  which  constituted  the 


252  HISTORV    OF    ENGLAND. 

main  strength  of  the  armies  of  Charles  the  First,  and  which 
iong  supported,  with  strange  fidelity,  the  interest  of  his  de- 
scendants. 

The  gross,  uneducated,  untravelled  country  gentleman  was 
commonly  a  Tory ;  but,  though  devotedly  attached  to  hered- 
itary monarchy,  he  had  no  partiality  for  courtiers  and  minis- 
ters.    He  thought,  not  without   reason,  that  Whitehall    was 
filled   with  the  most  corrupt  of  mankind ;  that  of  the  great 
sums  which  the  House  of  Commons  had  voted  to  the  crown 
since  the  Restoration  part  had  been  embezzled   by  cunning 
politicians,  and  part  squandered  on  buffoons  and  foreign  cour- 
tesans.    His  stout  English  heart  swelled  with  indignation  at 
the  thought  that  the  government  of  his  country  should  be 
subject  to  French  dictation.     Being  himself  generally  an  old 
Cavalier,  or  the  son  of  an  old  Cavalier,  he  reflected  with  bitter 
resentment  on  the  ingratitude  with  which  the  .Stuarts  had  re- 
quited their  best  friends.     Those  who  heard  him  grumble  at 
the  neglect  with  which  he  was  treated,  and  at  the  profusion 
with  which  wealth  was  lavished  on  the  bastards  of  Nell  Gwynn 
•and  Madam  Carwell,  would  have  supposed  him  ripe  for  re- 
bellion.    But  all  this  ill  humor  lasted  only  till  the  throne  was 
really  in  danger.     It  was  precisely  when  those  whom  the  sov- 
ereign had  loaded  with  wealth  and  honors  shrank  from  his 
side  that  the  country  gentlemen,  so  surly  and  mutinous  in  the 
season  of  his  prosperity,  rallied  round  him  in  a  body.     Thus, 
after  murmuring  twenty  years  at  the  misgovernment  of  Charles 
the  Second,  they  came  to  his  rescue  in  his  extremity,  when 
his  own  secretaries  of  state  and  lords  of  the  Treasury  hxd 
deserted  him,  and  enabled  him  to  gain  a  complete  victory  over 
the  opposition  ;  nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  they  would 
have  shown  equal  loyalty  to  his  brother  James,  if  James  would, 
even    at  the   moment,  have    refrained  from   outraging   their 
strongest  feeling.     For  there  was  one  institution,  and  one  only, 
which  they  prized  even  more  than  hereditary  monarchy  ;  and 
ihat  institution  was  the  Church  of  England.     Their  love  of 
the  Church  was  not,  indeed,  the  effect  of  study  or  meditation. 
Few  among  them   could  have  given  any  reason,  drawn  from 
Scripture  or  ecclesiastical  history,  for  adhering  to  her  doc- 
trines, her  ritual,  and  her  polity ;  nor  were  they,  as  a  class, 
by  any  means  strict  observers  of  that  code  of  morality  which 
is  common  to  all  Christian  sects.     But  the  experience  of  many 
ages  proves  that  men  may  be  ready  to  fight  *o  the  death, 
and  to  persecute  without    pity,  for   a    religion  whose    creed 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  253 

they  do  not  understand,  and  whose  precepts  they  habitually 
disobey.* 

The  rural  clergy  were  even  more  vehement  in  Toryism 
than  the  rural  gentry,  and  were  a  class  scarcely  less  important. 
It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  individual  clergyman, 
as  compared  with  the  individual  gentleman,  then  ranked  much 
lower  than  in  these  days.  The  main  support  of  the  Church 
was  derived  from  the  tithe ;  and  the  tithe  bore  to  the  rent  a 
much  smaller  ratio  than  at  present.  King  estimated  the  whole 
income  of  the  parochial  and  collegiate  clergy  at  only  four 
hundred  and  eighty  thousand  pounds  a  year;  Davenant  at 
only  five  hundred  and  forty-four  thousand  a  year.  It  is  cer- 
tainly now  more  than  seven  times  as  great  as  the  larger  of 
these  two  sums.  It  follows  that  rectors  and  vicars  must  have 
been,  as  compared  with  the  neighboring  knights  and  squires, 
much  poorer  in  the  seventeenth  than  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. 

The  place  of  the  clergyman  in  society  had  been  completely 
changed  by  the  Reformation.  Before  that  event,  ecclesiastics 
had  formed  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Lords,  had,  in 
wealth  and  splendor,  equalled,  and  sometimes  outshone,  the 
greatest  of  the  temporal  barons,  and  had  generally  held  the 
highest  civil  offices.  The  lord  treasurer  was  often  a  bishop. 
The  lord  chancellor  was  almost  always  so.  The  lord  keeper 
of  the  privy  seal  and  the  master  of  the  rolls  were  ordinarily 
Churchmen.  Churchmen  transacted  the  most  important  diplo- 
matic business.  Indeed,  almost  all  that  large  portion  of  the 
administration  which  rude  and  warlike  nobles  were  incompe- 
tent to  conduct  was  considered  as  especially  belonging  to 
divines.  Men,  therefore,  who  were  averse  to  the  life  of 
camps,  and  who  were,  at  the  same  time,  desirous  to  rise  in  the 
state,  ordinarily  received  the  tonsure.  Among  them  were 
sons  of  all  the  most  illustrious  families,  and  near  kinsmen  of 
the  throne,  Scroops  and  Nevilles,  Bourchiers,  Staffords,  and 
Poles.  To  the  religious  houses  belonged  the  rents  of  im- 
mense domains,  and  all  that  large  portion  of  the  tithe  which 
is  now  in  the  hands  of  laymen.  Down  to  the  middle  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  therefore,  no  line  of  life  bore  so 

*  My  notion  of  the  country  gentleman  of  the  seventeenth  century 
has  been  derived  from  sources  too  numerous  to  be  recapitulated.     I 
must  leave  my  description  to  the  judgment  of  those  who  have  studied 
the  history  and  the  lighter  literature  of  that  age. 
VOL.  I.  22 


264  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

inviting  an  aspect  to  ambitious  and  covetous  natures  as  the 
priesthood.  Then  came  a  violent  revolution.  The  abolition 
of  the  monasteries  deprived  the  Church  at  once  of  the  greater 
part  of  her  wealth,  and  of  her  predominance  in  the  Upper 
House  of  parliament.  There  was  no  longer  an  abbot  of  Glas- 
tonbury,  or  an  abbot  of  Reading,  seated  among  the  peers,  and 
possessed  of  revenues  equal  to  those  of  a  powerful  earl.  The 
princely  splendor  of  William  of  Wykeham  and  of  William  of 
Waynflete  had  disappeared.  The  scarlet  hat  of  the  cardinal, 
the  silver  cross  of  the  legate,  were  no  more.  The  clergy  had 
also  lost  the  ascendency  which  is  the  natural  reward  of  superior 
mental  cultivation.  Once  the  circumstance  that  a  man  could 
read  had  raised  a  presumption  that  he  was  in  orders.  But 
in  an  age  which  produced  such  laymen  as  William  Cecil  and 
Nicholas  Bacon,  .Roger-  Ascham  and  Thomas  Smith,  Walter 
Mildmay  and  Francis  Walsingham,  there  was  no  reason  for 
calling  away  prelates  from  their  dioceses  to  negotiate  treaties, 
to  superintend  the  finances,  or  to  administer  justice.  The 
spiritual  character  not  only  ceased  to  be  a  qualification  for 
high  civil  office,  but  began  to  be  regarded  as  a  disqualification. 
Those  worldly  motives,  therefore,  which  had  formerly  induced 
so  many  able,  aspiring,  and  high-born  youths  to  assume  .the 
ecclesiastical  habit,  ceased  to  exist.  Not  one  parish  in  two 
hundred  then  afforded  what  a  man  of  family  considered  as  a 
maintenance.  There  were  still  indeed  prizes  in  the  Church  : 
but  they  were  few ;  and  even  the  highest  were  mean,  when 
compared  with  the  glory  which  had  once  surrounded  the  princes 
of  the  hierarchy.  The  state  kept  by  Parker  and  Grindal 
seemed  beggarly  to  those  who  remembered  the  imperial  pomp 
of  Wolsey,  his  palaces,  which  had  become  the  favorite  abodes 
of  royalty,  Whitehall  and  Hampton  Court,  the  three  sumptu- 
ous tables  daily  spread  in  his  hall,  the  forty-four  gorgeous 
copes  in  his  chapel,  his  running  footmen  in  rich  liveries,  and 
his  body-guards  with  gilded  pole  axes.  Thus  the  sacerdotal 
office  lost  its  attraction  for  the  higher  classes.  During  the 
century  which  followed  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  scarce  a 
single  person  of  noble  descent  took  orders.  At  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  two  sons  of  peers  were  bish- 
ops :  four  or  five  sons  of  peers  were  priests,  and  held  valuable 
preferment :  but  these  rare  exceptions  did  not  take  away  the 
reproach  which  lay  on  the  body.  The  clergy  were  regarded 
as,  on  the  whole,  a  plebeian  class.  And,  indeed,  for  one  who 
made  the  figure  of  a  gentlerrfln,  ten  were  mere  menial  ser 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  355 

vants.  A  large  proportion  of  tho»3  divines  who  had  no  bone- 
fices,  or  whose  benefices  were  too  small  to  afford  a  comfortable 
revenue  lived  in  the  houses  of  laymen.  It  had  long  been 
evident  that  this  practice  tended  to  degrade  the  priestly  char- 
acter. Laud  had  exerted  himself  to  effect  a  change  ;  and 
Charles  the  First  had  repeatedly  issued  positive  orders  that 
none  but  men  of  high  rank  should  presume  to  keep  domestic 
chaplains.*  But  these  injunctions  had  become  obsolete.  In- 
deed, during  the  domination  of  the  Puritans,  many  of  the 
ejected  ministers.of  the  Church  of  England  could  obtain  bread 
and  shelter  only  by  attaching  themselves  to  the  households  of 
royalist  gentlemen ;  and  the  habits  which  had  been  formed  in 
those  times  of  trouble  continued  long  after  the  reestablishment 
of  monarchy  and  episcopacy.  In  the  mansions  of  men  of  lib- 
eral sentiments  and  cultivated  understandings,  the  chaplain 
was  doubtless  treated  with  urbanity  and  kindness.  His  con- 
versation, his  literary  assistance,  his  spiritual  advice,  were  con- 
sidered as  an  ample  return  for  his  food,  his  lodging,  and  his 
stipend.  But  this  was  not  the  general  feeling  of  the  country 
gentlemen.  The  coarse  and  ignorant  squire,  who  thought  that 
it  belonged  to  his  dignity  to  have  grace  said  every  day  at  his 
table  by  an  ecclesiastic  in  full  canonicals,  found  means  to  rec- 
oncile dignity  with  economy.  A  young  Levite  —  such  was 
the  phrase  then  in  use  —  might  be  had  for  his  board,  a  small 
garret,  and  ten  pounds  a  year,  and  might  not  only  perform  his 
own  professional  functions,  might  not  only  be  the  most  patient 
of  butts  and  of  listeners,  might  not  only  be  always  ready  in  fine 
weather  for  bowls,  and  in  rainy  weather  for  shovel-board,  but ' 
might  also  save  the  expense  of  a  gardener,  or  of  a  groom. 
Sometimes  the  reverend  man  nailed  up  the  apricots,  and  some- 
times he  curried  the  coach  horses.  He  cast  up  the  farrier's 
bills.  He  walked  ten  miles  with  a  message  or  a  parcel.  If 
he  was  permitted  to  dine  with  the  family,  he  was  expected  to 
content  himself  with  the  plainest  fare.  He  might  fill  himself 
with  the  corned  beef  and  the  carrots :  but,  as  soon  as  the  tarts 
and  cheesecakes  made  their  appearance,  he  quitted  his  seat, 
and  stood  aloof  till  he  was  summoned  to  return  thanks  for  the 
repast,  from  a  great  part  of  which  he  had  been  excluded.! 

*  See  Heylin's  Cyprianus  Anglicus. 

t  Eachard,  Causes  of  the  Contempt  of  the  Clergy ;  Oldham,  Satire 
addressed  to  a  Friend  about  to  leave  the  University ;  Tatler,  255,  258, 
That  the  English  clergy  were  a  low-born  class,  is  remarked  in  th« 
Travels  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo. 


236  BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

Perhaps  after  sorm  years  of  service  he  was  presented  to  a 
living  sufficient  to  support  him  :  but  he  often  found  it  necessary 
to  purchase  his  preferment  by  a  species  of  simony,  which  fur- 
nished an  inexhaustible  subject  of  pleasantry  to  three  or  four 
generations  of  scoffers.  With  his  cure  he  was  expected  to 
take  a  wife.  The  wife  had  ordinarily  been  in  the  patron's 
service  ;  and  it  was  well  if  she  was  not  suspected  of  standing 
too  high  in  the  patron's  favor.  Indeed,  the  nature  of  the  mat- 
rimonial connections  which  the  clergymen  of  that  age  were  in 
the  habit  of  forming  is  the  most  certain  indication  of  the  place 
which  the  order  held  in  the  social  system.  An  Oxonian,  writ- 
ing a  few  months  after  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second,  com- 
plained bitterly,  not  only  that  the  country  attorney  and  the 
country  apothecary  looked  down  with  disdain  on  the  country 
clergyman,  but  that  one  of  the  lessons  most  earnestly  incul- 
cated on  every  girl  of  honorable  family  was,  to  give  no  encour- 
agement to  a  lover  in  orders,  and  that,  if  any  young  lady  forgot 
this  precept,  she  was  almost  as  much  disgraced  as  by  an  illicit 
amour.*  Clarendon,  who  assuredly  bore  no  ill  will  to  the 
Church,  mentions  it  as  a  sign  of  the  confusion  of  ranks  which 
the  great  rebellion  had  produced,  that  some  damsels  of  noble 
families  had  bestowed  themselves  on  divines.t  A  waiting 
woman  was  generally  considered  as  the  most  suitable  helpmate 
for  a  parson.  Queen  Elizabeth,  as  head  of  the  Church,  had 
given  what  seemed  to  be  a  formal  sanction  to  this  prejudice, 
by  issuing  special  orders  that  no  clergyman,should  presume  to 
.  marry  a  servant  girl,  without  the  consent  of  her  master  or 
mistress.J  During  several  generations  accordingly  the  rela- 
tion between  priests  and  handmaidens  was  a  theme  for  endless 
jest;  nor  would  it  be  easy  to  find,  in  the  comedy  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  a  single  instance  of  a  clergyman  who  wins  a 

*  "  A  causidico,  medicastro,  ipsaque  artificum  farragine,  ecclesise 
vector  aut  vicarius  contemnitur  et  fit  ludibrio.  Gentis  et  familiae  nitor 
sacris  ordinibus  pollutus  censetur :  fceminisque  natalitio  insignibus 
nnicum  inculcatur  saepius  praoceptum,  ne  modestiae  naufragium  faciant, 
aut,  (quod  idem  auribus  tarn  delicatulis  sonat,)  ne  clerico  se  nuptas 
dari  patiantur."  Angliae  Notitia,  by  T.  Wood  of  New  College,  Ox- 
ford, 1686. 

t  Clarendon's  Life,  ii.  21. 

J  See  the  Injunctions  of  1559,  in  Bishop  Sparrow's  Collection. 
Jeremy  Collier,  in  his  Essay  on  Pride,  speaks  of  this  injunction  with 
a  bitterness  which  proves  that  tdj  own  pride  had  not  been  effectually 
tamed. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLANU.  257 

spouse  above  the  rank  of  a  cook.*  Even  so  late  as  the  time  of 
George  the  Second,  the  keenest  of  all  observers  of  life  and 
manners,  himself  a  priest,  remarked  that,  in  a  great  household, 
the  chaplain  was  the  resource  of  a  lady's  maid  whose  charac- 
ter had  been  blown  upon,  and  who  was  therefore  forced  to 
give  up  hopes  of  catching  the  steward.! 

In  general  the  divine  who  quitted  his  chaplainship  for  a  ben- 
efice and  a  wife  found  that  he  had  only  exchanged  one  class 
of  vexations  for  another.  Not  one  living  in  fifty  enabled  the 
incumbent  to  bring  up  a  family  comfortably.  As  children 
multiplied  and  grew,  the  household  of  the  priest  became  more 
and  more  beggarly.  Holes  appeared  more  and  more  plainly 
in  the  thatch  of  his  parsonage  and  in  his  single  cassock.  Often 
it  was  only  by  toiling  on  his  glebe,  by  feeding  swine,  and  by 
loading  dung-carts,  that  he  could  obtain  daily  bread ;  nor  did 
his  utmost  exertions  always  prevent  the  bailiffs  from  taking  his 
concordance  and  his  inkstand  in  execution.  It  was  a  white 
day  on  which  he  was  admitted  into  the  kitchen  of  a  great 
house,  and  regaled  by  the  servants  with  cold  meat  and  ale. 
His  children  were  brought  up  like  the  children  of  the  neigh- 
boring peasantry.  His  boys  followed  the  plough ;  and  his 
girls  went  out  to  service.  Study  he  found  impossible  ;  for  the 
advowson  of  his  living  would  hardly  have  sold  for  a  sum  suf- 
ficient to  purchase  a  good  theological  library ;  and  he  might 
be  considered  as  unusually  lucky  if  he  had  ten  or  twelve  dog- 
eared volumes  among  the  pots  and  pans  on  his  shelves.  Even 
a  keen  and  strong  intellect  might  be  expected  to  rust  in  so 
unfavorable  a  situation. 

Assuredly  there  was  at  that  time  no  lack  in  the  English 
Church  of  ministers  distinguished  by  abilities  and  learning. 
But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  these  ministers  were  not  scattered 
among  the  rural  population.  They  were  brought  together  at 
a  few  places  where  the  means  of  acquiring  knowledge  were 
"abundant,  and  where  the  opportunities  of  vigorous  intellectual 
exercise  were  frequent.f  At  such  places  were  to  be  found 
divines  qualified  by  parts,  by  eloquence,  by  wide  knowledge 

»  Roger  and  Abigail  in  Fletcher's  Scornful  Lady,  Bull  and  the 
Nurse  in  Vanbrugh's  Relapse,  Smirk  and  Susan  in  Shad-well's  Lanca- 
shire Witches,  are  instances. 

t  Swift's  Directions  to  Servants. 

J  This   distinction  between  country  clergy  and  town  clergy  is 
strongly  marked  by  Eachard,  and  cannot  but  be  observed  by  every 
person  who  has  studied  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  that  age. 
22* 


258  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  liteiature,  of  science,  and  of  life,  to  defend  their  Church 
victoriously  against  heretics  and  sceptics,  to  command  the 
attention  of  frivolous  and  worldly  congregations,  to  guide  the 
deliberations  of  senates,  and  to  make  religion  respectable,  even 
in  the  most  dissolute,  of  courts.  Some  of  them  labored  to 
fathom  the  abysses  of  metaphysical  theology;  some  were 
deeply  versed  in  biblical  criticism  ;  and  some  threw  light  on 
the  darkest  parts  of  ecclesiastical  history.  Some  proved  them- 
selves consummate  masters  of  logic.  Some  cultivated  rhet- 
oric with  such  assiduity  and  success,  that  their  discourses  are 
still  justly  valued  as  models  of  style.  These  eminent  men 
were  to  be  found,  with  scarce  a  single  exception,  at  the  uni- 
versities, at  the  great  cathedrals,  or  in  the  capital.  Barrow 
had  lately  died  at  Cambridge  ;  and  Pearson  had  gone  thence 
to  the  episcopal  bench.  Cudworth  and  Henry  More  were  still 
living  there.  South  and  Pococke,  Jane  and  Aldrich,  were  at 
Oxford.  Prideaux  was  in  the  close  of  Norwich,  and  Whitby 
in  the  close  of  Salisbury.  But  it  was  chiefly  by  the  London 
clergy,  who  were  always  spoken  of  as  a  class  apart,  that  the 
fame  of  their  profession  for  learning  and  eloquence  was  up- 
held. The  principal  pulpits  of  the  metropolis  were  occupied 
about  this  time  by  a  crowd  of  distinguished  men,  from  among 
whom  was  selected  a  large  proportion  of  the  rulers  of  the 
Church.  Sherlock  preached  at  the  Temple,  Tillotson  at 
Lincoln's  Inn,  Wake  and  Jeremy  Collier  at  Gray's- Inn,  Bur- 
net  at  the  Rolls,  Stillingfleet  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  Patrick  at 
St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden,  Fowler  at  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate, 
Sharp  at  St.  Giles's  in  the  Fields,  Tennison  at  St.  Martin's, 
Sprat  at  St.  Margaret's,  Beveridge  at  St.  Peter's  in  Cornhill. 
Of  these  twelve  men,  all  of  high  note  in  ecclesiastical  history, 
ten  became  bishops,  and  four  archbishops.  Meanwhile  almost 
the  only  important  theological  works  which  came  forth  from  a 
rural  parsonage  were  those  of  George  Bull,  afterwards  Bishop 
of  St.  David's ;  and  Bull  never  would  have  produced  those 
works,  had  he  not  inherited  an  estate,  by  the  sale  of  which  he 
was  enabled  to  collect  a  library,  such  as  probably  no  other 
country  clergyman  in  England  possessed.* 

Thus  the  Anglican  priesthood  was  divided  into  two  sections 
which,  in  acquirements,  in  manners,  and  in  social  position, 
differed  widely  from  each  other.  One  section,  trained  for 
and  courts,  comprised  men  familiar  with  all  ancient  and 

•  Nelson's  Life  of  Bull. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  259 

modern  learning ;  men  able  to  encounter  Hobbes  or  Bossuet 
at  all  the  weapons  of  controversy  ;  men  who  could,  in  their 
sermons,  set  forth  the  majesty  and  beauty  of  Christianity  with 
such  justness  of  thought,  and  such  energy  of  language,  that 
the  indolent  Charles  roused  himself  to  listen,  and  the  fastidious 
Buckingham  forgot  to  sneer ;  men  whose  address,  politeness, 
and  knowledge  of  the  world,  qualified  them  to  manage  the 
consciences  of  the  wealthy  and  noble  ;  men  with  whom  Hali- 
fax loved  to  discuss  the  interests  of  empires,  and  from  whom 
Dryden  was  not  ashamed  to  own  that  he  had  learned  to  write.* 
The  other  section  was  destined  to  ruder  and  humbler  service. 
It  was  dispersed  over  the  country,  and  consisted  chiefly  of 
persons  rot  at  all  wealthier,  'and  not  much  more  refined,  than 
small  farmers  or  upper  servants.  Yet  it  was  in  these  rustic 
priests,  who  derived  but  a  scanty  subsistence  from  their  tithe 
sheaves  and  tithe  pigs,  and  who  bad  not  the  smallest  chance 
of  ever  attaining  high  professional  honors,  that  the  professional 
spirit  was  strongest.  Among  those  divines  who  were  the  boast 
of  the  universities  and  the  delight  of  the  capital,  and  who  had 
attained,  or  might  reasonably  expect  to  attain,  opulence  and 
lordly  rank,  a  party,  respectable  in  numbers,  and  more  respec- 
table in  character,  leaned  towards  constitutional  principles  of 
government,  lived  on  friendly  terms  with  Presbyterians,  Inde- 
pendents, and  Baptists,  would  gladly  have  seen  a  full  tolera- 
tion granted  to  all  Protestant  sects,  and  would  even  have  con- 
sented to  make  alterations  in  the  liturgy,  for  the  purpose  o£ 
conciliating  honest  and  candid  Nonconformists.  But  such 
latitudinarianism  was  held  in  horror  by  the  country  parson. 
He  was,  indeed,  prouder  of  his  ragged  gown  than  his  supe- 
riors of  their  lawn  and  of  their  scarlet  hoods.  The  very 
consciousness  that  there  was  little  in  his  worldly  circumstances 
to  distinguish  him  from  the  villagers  to  whom  he  preached  led 
him  to  hold  immoderately  high  the  dignity  of  that  sacerdotal 
office  which  was  his  single  title  to  reverence.  Having  lived 
in  seclusion,  and  having  had  little  opportunity  of  correcting 
his  opinions  by  reading  or  conversation,  he  held  and  taught 
the  doctrines  of  indefeasible  hereditary  right,  of  passive  obe- 
dience, and  of  non-resistance,  in  all  their  crude  absurdity. 
Having  been  long  engaged  in  a  petty  war  against  the  neigh- 

*  "  I  have  frequently  heard  him  (Dryden)  own  with  pleasure  that, 
if  he  had  any  talent  for  English  prose,  it  was  owing  10  his  having  often 
read  the  writings  of  the  great  Archbishop  Tillotson."  Congreve's 
Dedication  of  Dryden's  Plays. 


260  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

boring  dissenters,  he  too  often  hated  them  for  the  wrongs 
which  he  had  done  them,  and  found  no  fauh  with  the  Five 
Mile  Act  and  the  Conventicle  Act,  exceot  that  those  odious 
laws  had  not  a  sharper  edge.  Whatever  influence  his  office 
gave  him  was  exerted  with  passionate  zeal  on  the  Tory  side 
and  that  influence  was  immense.  It  would  be  a  great  error  to 
imagine,  because  the  country  rector  was  in  general  not  re- 
garded as  a  gentleman,  because  he  could  not  dare  to  aspire  to 
the  hand  of  one  of  the  young  ladies  at  the  manor  house, 
because  he  was  not  asked  into  the  parlors  of  the  great,  but 
was  left  to  drink  and  smoke  with  grooms  and  butlers,  that  the 
power  of  the  clerical  body  was  smaller  than  at  present.  The 
influence  of  a  class  is  by  no  means  proportioned  to  the  consid- 
eration which  the  members  of  that  class  enjoy  in  their  indi- 
vidual capacity.  A  cardinal  is  a  much  more  exalted  person- 
age than  a  begging  friar ;  but  it  would  be  a  grievous  mistake 
to  suppose  that  the  College  of  Cardinals  has  exercised  a 
greater  dominion  over  the  public-rmind  of  Europe  than  the 
order  of  Saint  Francis.  In  Ireland,  at  present,  a  peer  holds  a 
far  higher  station  in  society  than  a  Roman  Catholic  priest ; 
yet  there  are  in  Munster  and  Connaught  few  counties  where 
a  combination  of  priests  would  not  carry  an  election  against  a 
combination  of  peers.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  pulpit 
was  to  a  large  portion  of  the  population  what  the  periodical 
press  now  is.  Scarce  any  of  the  clowns  who  came  to  the 
parish  church  ever  saw  a  gazette  or  a  political  pamphlet.  Ill 
informed  as  their  spiritual  pastor  might  be,  he  was  yet  better 
nformed  than  themselves ;  he  had  every  week  an  opportunity 
of  haranguing  them  ;  and  his  harangues  were  never  answered. 
At  every  important  conjuncture,  invectives  against  the  Whigs 
and  exhortations  to  obey  the  Lord's  Anointed  resounded  at 
once  from  many  thousands  of  pulpits ;  and  the  effect  was 
formidable  indeed.  Of  all  the  causes  which,  after  the  disso- 
lution of  the  Oxford  parliament,  produced  the  violent  reaction 
against  the  Exclusionists,  the  most  potent  seems  to  have  been 
the  oratory  of  the  country  clergy. 

The  power  which  the  country  gentlemen  and  the  country 
clergymen  exercised  in  the  rural  districts  was  in  some  measure 
counterbalanced  by  the  power  of  the  yeomanry,  an  eminertly 
manly  and  true-hearted  race.  The  petty  proprietors  who  cul- 
tivated their  own  fields  and  enjoyed  a  modest  competence, 
without  affecting  to  have  scutcheons  and  crests,  or  aspiring  to 
•\t  on  the  bench  of  justice,  then  formed  a  much  more  impor- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  261 

tant  part  of  the  nation  than  at  present.  If  we  may  trust  the 
best  statistical  writers  of  that  age,  not  less  than  a  hundred  and 
sixty  thousand  proprietors,  who,  with  their  families,  must  have 
made  up  more  than  a  seventh  of  the  whole  population,  de- 
rived their  subsistence  from  little  freehold  estates.  The  aver- 
age income  of  these  small  land-owners  was  estimated  at 
between  sixty  and  seventy  pounds  a  year.  It  was  computed 
that  the  number  of  persons  who  occupied  their  own  land  was 
greater  than  the  number  of  those  who  farmed  the  land  of 
others.*  A  large  portion  of  the  yeomanry  had,  from  the  time 
of  the  Reformation,  leaned  towards  Puritanism,  had,  in  the 
civil  war,  taken  the  sii#  of  the  parliament,  had,  after  the 
Restoration,  persisted  in  hearing  Presbyterian  and  Independent 
preachers,  had,  at  elections,  strenuously  supported  the  Exclu- 
sionists,  and  had  continued, -even  after  the  discovery  of  the 
Rye  House  Plot  and  the  proscription  of  the  Whig  leaders,  to 
regard  Popery  and  arbitrary  power  with  unmitigated  hostility. 
^Great  as  has  been  the  change  in  the  rural  life  of  England 
since  the  Revolution,  the  change  which  has  come  to  pass  in 
the  cities  "is  still  more  amazing.  At  present  a  sixth  part  ot 
the  nation  is  crowded  into  provincial  towns  of  more  than 
thirty  thousand  inhabitants.  In  the  reign' of  Charles  the  Sec- 
ond no  provincial  town  in  the  kingdom  contained  thirty  thou- 
sand inhabitants  ;  and  only  four  provincial  towns  contained 
so  many  as  ten  thousand  inhabitants. 

Next  to  the  capital,  but  next  at  an  immense  distance,  stood 
Bristol,  then  the  first  English  seaport,  and  Norwich,  then  the 
first  English  manufacturing  town.  Both  have  since  that  time 
been  far  outstripped  by  younger  rivals ;  yet  both  have  made 
great  positive  advances.  The  population  of  Bristol  has  quad- 
rupled. The  population  of  Norwich  has  more  than  doubled. 

Pepys,  who  visited  Bristol  eight  years  after  the  Restoration, 
was  struck  by  the  splendor  of  the  city.  But  his  standard  was  not 
high  ;  for  he  noted  down  as  a  wonder  the  circumstance  that,  in 
Bristol,  a  man  might  look  round  him  and  see  nothing  but  houses. 
It  seems  that,  in  no  other  place  with  which  he  was  acquainted, 
except  London,  did  the  buildings  completely  shut  out  the  woods 
and  fields.  Large  as  Bristol  might  then  appear,  it  occupied 
but  a  very  small  portion  of  the  area  on  which  it  now  stands. 
A  few  churches  of  eminent  beauty  rose  out  of  a  labyrinth  of 

*  I  have  taken  Davenant's  estimate,  which  is  a  little  lower  than 
King's. 


262  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

narrow  lanes  built  upon  vaults  of  no  great  solidity.  If  a 
coach  or  a  cart  entered  these  alleys,  there  was  danger  that  it 
would  be  wedged  between  the  houses,  and  danger  also  that 
it  would  break  in  the  cellars.  Goods  were  therefore  con- 
veyed about  the  town  almost  exclusively  in  trucks  drawn  by 
dogs ;  and  the  richest  inhabitants  exhibited  their  wealth,  not 
by  riding  in  gilded  carriages,  but  by  walking  the  streets  with 
trains  of  servants  in  rich  liveries,  and  by  keeping  tables 
loaded  with  good  cheer.  The  pomp  of  the  christenings  and 
burials  far  exceeded  what  was  seen  at  any  other  place  in 
England.  The  hospitality  of  the  city  was  widely  renowned, 
and  especially  the  collations  with  which  the  sugar  refiners 
regaled  their  visitors.  The  repast  was  dressed  in  the  fur- 
nace, and  was  accompanied  by  a  rich  brewage  made  of  the 
best  Spanish  wine,  and  celebrated  over  the  whole  kingdom  as 
Bristol  milk.  This  luxury  was  supported  by  a  thriving  trade 
with  the  North  American  plantations  and  with  the  West  In- 
dies. The  passion  for  colonial  traffic  was  so  strong  that  there 
was  scarce  a  small  shopkeeper  in  Bristol  who  had  not  a  ven- 
ture on  board  of  some  ship  bound  for  Virginia  or  the  Antilles. 
Some  of  these  ventures  indeed  were  not  of  the  most  honor- 
able kind.  There  was,  in  the  Transatlantic  possessions  of  the 
crown,  a  great  demand  for  labor ;  and  this  demand  was  partly 
supplied  by  a  system  of  crimping  and  kidnapping  at  the 
principal  English  seaports.  Nowhere  was  this  system  found 
in  such  active  and  extensive  operation  as  at  Bristol.  Even 
the  first  magistrates  of  that  city  were  not  ashamed  to  enrich 
themselves  by  so  odious  a  commerce.  The  number  of  houses 
in  the  city  appears,  from  the  returns  of  the  hearth  money,  to 
have  been,  in  the  year  1685,  just  five  thousand  three  hundred. 
We  can  hardly  suppose  the  number  of  persons  in  a  house  to 
have  been  greater  than  in  the  city  of  London ;  and  in  the 
city  of  London  we  learn  from  the  best  authority  that  tie  re 
were  then  fifty-five  persons  to  ten  houses.  The  population 
of  Bristol  must  therefore  have  been  twenty-nine  thousand 
souls.* 

*  Evelyn's  Diary,  June  27,  1654 :  Pepys's  Diary,  June  13,  1668 ; 
Roger  North's  Lives  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford,  and  of  Sir  Dudley 
North ;  Petty's  Political  Arithmetic.  I  have  taken  Petty's  facts,  but 
in  drawing  inferences  from  them,  I  have  been  guided  by  King  and 
Davenant,  who,  though  not  abler  men  than  he,  had  the  advantage  of 
coming  after  him.  As  to  the  kidnapping  for  which  Bristol  was  infa- 
mous, see  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  121,  216,  and  the  harangue  of 


H1STOBT    OF    ENGLAND.  263 

Norwich  was  the  capital  of  a  large  and  fruitful  province. 
It  was  the  residence  of  a  bishop  and  of  a  chapter.  It  was  the 
chief  seat  of  the  chief  manufacture  of  the  realm.  Some  men 
distinguished  by  learning  and  science  had  recently  dwelt 
there ;  and  no  place  in  the  kingdom,  except  the  capital  and 
the  universities,  had  more  attractions  for  the  curious.  The 
library,  the  museum,  the  aviary,  and  the  botanical  garden  of 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  were  thought  by  Fellows  of  the  Royal 
Society  well  worthy  of  a  long  pilgrimage.  Norwich  had  also 
a  court  in  miniature.  In  the  heart  of  the  city  stood  an  old 
palace  of  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk,  said  to  be  the  largest  town 
house  in  the  kingdom  out  of  London.  In  this  mansion,  to 
which  were  annexed  a  tennis  court,  a  bowling  green,  and  a 
wilderness  stretching  along  the  bank  of  the  Wansum,  the 
noble  family  of  Howard  frequently  resided,  and  kept  a  state 
resembling  that  of  petty  sovereigns.  Drink  was  served  to 
guests  in  goblets  of  pure  gold.  The  very  tongs  and  shovels 
were  of  silver.  Pictures  by  Italian  masters  adorned  the  walls. 
The  cabinets  were  filled  with  a  fine  collection  of  gems  pur- 
chased by  that  Earl  of  Arundel  whose  marbles  are  now 
among  the  ornaments  of  Oxford.  Here,  in  the  year  1671, 
Charles  and  his  court  were  sumptuously  entertained.  Here, 
too,  all  comers  were  annually  welcomed  from  Christmas  to 
Twelfth  Night.  Ale  flowed  in  oceans  for  the  populace. 
Three  coaches,  one  of  which  had  been  built  at  a  cost  of 
five  hundred  pounds,  to  contain  fourteen  persons,  were  sent 
every  afternoon  round  the  city  to  bring  ladies  to  the  festiv- 
ities ;  and  the  dances  were  always  followed  by  a  luxurious 
banquet.  When  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  came  to  Norwich, 
he  was  greeted  like  a  king  returning  to  his  capital.  The  bells 
of  the  cathedral  and  of  Saint  Peter  Mancroft  were  rung. 
The  guns  of  the  castle  were  fired ;  and  the  mayor  and  alder- 
men waited  on  their  illustrious  fellow-citizen  with  compli- 
mentary addresses.  In  the  year  1693  the  population  of 
Norwich  was  found,  by  actual  enumeration,  to  be  between 
twenty-eight  and  twenty-nine  thousand  souls.* 

Jeffreys  on  the  subject,  in  the  Impartial  History  of  his  Life  and 
Death,  printed  with  the  Bloody  Assizes.  His  style  was,  as  usual, 
coarse  ;  but  I  cannot  reckon  the  reprimand  which  he  gave  to  the  ma- 
gistrates of  Bristol  among  his  crimes. 

*  Fuller's  Worthies;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Oct.  17,  1671;  Journal  of 
E.  Browne,  son  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Jan.  166 f-;  Blomefield's 
History  of  Norfolk ;  History  of  the  City  and  County  of  Norwich, 
2  rols.  1768 


264  HISTOR5T    OF    ENGLAND. 

Far  below  Norwich,  but  still  high  in  dignity  and  importance, 
were  some  other  ancient  capitals  of  shires.  In  that  age 
it  was  seldom  that  a  country  gentleman  went  up  with  his 
family  to  London.  The  county  town  was  his  metropolis.  He 
sometimes  made  it  his  residence  during  part  of  the  year.  At 
all  events,  he  was  often  attracted  thither  by  business  and 
pleasure,  by  assizes,  quarter  sessions,  elections,  musters  of 
militia,  festivals,  and  races.  There  were  the  halls  where  the 
nidges,  robed  in  scarlet  and  escp-rted  by  javelins  and  trumpets, 
opened  the  king's  commission  twice  a  year.  There  were  the 
markets  a^  which  the  corn,  the  cattle,  the  wool,  and  the  hops 
of  the  surrounding  country  were  exposed  to  sale.  There 
were  the  great  fairs  to  which  merchants  came  down  from 
London,  and  where  the  rural  dealer  laid  in  his  annual  stores 
of  sugar,  stationery,  cutlery,  and  muslin.  There  were  the 
shops  at  which  the  best  families  of  the  neighborhood  bought 
grocery  and  millinery.  Some  of  these  places  derived  dig- 
nity from  interesting  historical  recollections,  from  cathedrals 
decorated  by  all  the  art  and  magnificence  of  the  middle  ages, 
from  palaces  where  a  long  succession  of  prelates  had  dwelt, 
from  closes  surrounded  by  the  venerable  abodes  of  deans  and 
canons,  and  from  castles  which  had  in  the  old  time  repelled 
the  Nevilles  or  De  Veres,  and  which  bore  more  recent  traces 
of  the  vengeance  of  Rupert  or  of  Cromwell. 

Conspicuous  among  these  interesting  cities  were  York,  the 
capital  of  the  north,  ajid  Exeter,  the  capital  of  the  west. 
Neither  can  have  contained  much  more  than  ten  thousand 
inhabitants.  Worcester,  the  queen  of  the  cider  land,  had  about 
eight  thousand ;  Nottingham  probably  as  many.  Gloucester, 
renowned  for  that  resolute  defence  which  had  been  fatal  to 
Charles  the  First,  had  certainly  between  four  and  .five  thousand ; 
Derby  not  quite  four  thousand.  Shrewsbury  was  the  chief 
place  of  an  extensive  and  fertile  district.  The  court  of  the 
marches  of  Wales  was  held  there.  In  the  language  of  the 
gentry  many  miles  round  the  Wrekin,  to  go  to  Shrewsbury 
was  to  go  to  town.  The  provincial  wits  and  beauties  imitated, 
as  well  as  they  could,  the  fashions  of  Saint  James's  Park,  in 
the  walks  along  the  side  of  the  Severn.  The  inhabitants 
were  about  seven  thousand.* 

*  The  population  of  York  appears,  from  the  return  of  baptisms  and 
burials,  in  Drake's  History,  to  have  been  about  13,000  in  1730.  Ex- 
eter had  only  17,000  inhabitants  in  1801.  The  population  of  Worces- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  265 

The  population  of  every  one  of  these  places  has,  since  the 
Revolution,  much  more  than  doubled.  The  population  of 
some  has  multiplied  sevenfold.  The  streets  have  been  almost 
entirely  rebuilt.  Slate  has  succeeded  to  thatch,  and  brick  to 
timber.  The  pavements  and  the  lamps,  the  display  of  wealth 
in  the  principal  shops,  and  the  luxurious  neatness  of  the 
dwellings  occupied  by  the  gentry  would,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  have  seemed  miraculous.  Yet  is  the  relative  im- 
portance of  the  old  capitals  of  counties  by  no  means  what  it 
was.  Younger  towns,  towns  which  are  rarely  or  never  men- 
tioned in  our  early  history,  and  which  sent  no  representatives 
to  our  early  parliaments,  have,  within  the  membry  of  persons 
still  living,  grown  to  a  greatness  which  this  generation  con- 
templates with  wonder  and  pride,  not  unaccompanied  by  awe 
and  anxiety. 

The  most  eminent  of  these  towns  were  indeed  known  in 
the  seventeenth  century  as  respectable  seats  of  industry. 
Nay,  their  rapid  progress  and  their  vast  opulence  were  then 
sometimes  described  in  language  which  seems  ludicrous  to  a 
man  who  has  seen  their  present  grandeur.  One  of  the  most 
populous  and  prosperous  among  them  was  Manchester.  It 
had  been  required  by  the  Protector  to  send  one  representative 
to  his  parliament,  and  was  mentioned  by  writers  of  the  time 
of  Charles  the  Second  as  a  busy  and  opulent  place.  Cotton 
had,  during  half  a  century,  been  brought  thither  from  Cyprus 
and  Smyrna  ;  but  the  manufacture  was  in  its  infancy.  Whit- 
ney had  not  yet  taught  how  the  raw  material  might  be  furnished 
in  quantities  almost  fabulous.  Arkwright  had  not  yet  taught 
how  it  might  be  worked  up  with  a  speed  and  precision  which 

ter  was  numbered  just  before  the  siege  in  1646.  See  Nash's  History 
of  "Worcestershire.  I  have  made  allowance  for  the  increase  which 
must  be  supposed  to  have  taken  place  in  forty  years.  In  1740,  the 
population  of  Nottingham  was  found,  by  enumeration,  to  be  just 
10,000.  See  Bering's  History.  The  population  of  Gloucester  may 
readily  be  inferred  from  the  number  of  houses  which  King  found  in 
the  returns  of  hearth  money,  and  from  the  number  of  births  and  burials 
which  is  given  in  Atkyns's  History.  The  population  of  Derby  was  4000 
in  1712.  See  Wolley^s  MS.  H3tory,  quoted  in  Lyson's  Magna  Bri- 
tannia. The  population  of  Shrewsbury  was  ascertained,  in  1695,  by 
actual  enumeration.  As  to  the  gayeties  of  Shrewsbury,  see  Farquhar's 
Recruiting  Officer.  Farquhar's  description  is  borne  out  by  a  ballad 
in  the  Pepysian  Library,  of  which  the  burden  is  "  Shrewsbury  for 
me" 

VOL.  i.  23 


266  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

soem  magical.  The  whole  annual  import  did  not,  at  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  amount  to  two  millions  of  pounds,  a 
quantity  which  would  now  hardly  supply  the  demand  of  forty- 
eight  hours.  That  wonderful  emporium,  which  in  population 
and  wealth  far  surpasses  capitals  so  much  renowned  as  Berlin, 
Madrid,  and  Lisbon,  was  then  a  mean  and  ill-built  market 
town,  containing  under  six  thousand  people.  It  then  had  not 
a  single  press.  It  now  supports  a  hundred  printing  establish- 
ments. It  then  had  not  a  single  coach.  It  now  supports 
twenty  coachmakers.* 

Leeds  was  already  the  chief  seat  of  the  woollen  manufac- 
;  ures  of  Yorkshire  ;  but  the  elderly  inhabitants  could  still  re- 
member the  time  when  the  first  brick  house,  then  and  long 
after  called  the  Red  House,  was  built.  They  boasted  loudly 
of  their  increasing  wealth,  and  of  the  immense  sales  of  cloth 
which  took  place  in  the  open  air  on  the  bridge.  Hundreds, 
nay,  thousands  of  pounds  had  been  paid  down  in  the  course 
of  one  busy  market  day.  The  rising  importance  of  Leeds 
had  attracted  the  notice  of  successive  governments.  Charles 
the  First  had  granted  municipal  privileges  to  the  town.  Oliver 
had  invited  it  to  send  one  member  to  the  House  of  Commons. 
But  from  the  returns  of  the  hearth  money  it  seems  certain  that 
the  whole  population  of  the  borough,  an  extensive  district 
which  contains  many  hamlets,  did  not,  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second,  exceed  seven  thousand  souls.  In  1841  there 
were  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.t 

About  a  day's  journey  south  of  Leeds,  on  the  verge  of  a 
wild  moorland  tract,  lay  an  ancient  manor,  now  rich  with  cul- 
tivation, then  barren  and  unenclosed,  which  was  known  by  the 
name  of  Hallamshire.  Iron  abounded  there ;  and,  from  a  very 
early  period,  the  rude  whittles  fabricated  there  had  been  sold 
all  over  the  kingdom.  They  had  indeed  been  mentioned  by 
Geoffrey  Chaucer  in  one  of  his  Canterbury  Tales.  But  the 
manufacture  appears  to  have  made  little  progress  during  the 
three  centuries  which  followed  his  time.  This  languor  may 

*  Blome's  Britannia,  1673;  Aikin's  Country  round  Manchester; 
Manchester  Directory,  1845 ;  Baincs,  History  of  the  Cotton  Manu- 
facture. The  best  information  which  I  have  been  able  to  find  touch- 
ing the  population  of  Manchester  in  the  seventeenth  century,  is 
contained  in  a  paper  drawn  up  by  the  Reverend  R.  Parkinson,  and 
published  in  the  Journal  of  the  Statistical  Society  for  October,  1842. 

t  Thoresby's  Ducatus  Leodensis ;  Whitakei's  Loidis  and  Elmete  : 
WardelTs  Municipal  History  of  the  Borough  of  Leeds. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  267 

perhaps  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  trade  was,  during 
almost  the  whole  of  this  long  period,  subject  to  such  regula- 
tions as  the  lord  and  his  court  leet  thought  fit  to  impose.  The 
more  delicate  kinds  of  cutlery  were  either  made  in  the  capital, 
or  brought  from  the  Continent.  It  was  not  indeed  till  the 
reign  of  George  the  First,  that  the  English  surgeons  ceased 
to  import  from  France  those  exquisitely  fine  blades  which 
are  required  for  operations  on  the  human  frame.  Most  of  the 
Hallamshire  forges  were  collected  in  a  market  town  which 
had  sprung  up  near  the  castle  of  the  proprietor,  and  which, 
in  the  reign  of  James  the  First,  had  been  a  singularly  misera- 
ble place,  containing  about  two  thousand  inhabitants,  of  whon? 
a  third  were  half-starved  and  half-naked  beggars.  It  seems 
certain  from  the  parochial  registers  that  the  population  did  not 
amount  to  four  thousand  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second.  The  effects  of  a  species  of  toil  singularly  un- 
favorable to  the  health  and  vigor  of  the  human  frame  were  at 
once  discerned  by  every  traveller.  A  large  proportion  of  the 
people  had  distorted  limbs.  That  is  thaVSheffield  which  now, 
with  its  dependencies,  contains  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
souls,  and  which  sends  forth  its  admirable  knives,  razors,  and 
lancets,  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  world.* 

Birmingham  had  not  been  thought  of  sufficient  importance 
to  send  a  member  to  Oliver's  parliament.  Yet  the  manufac- 
turers of  Birmingham  were  already  a  busy  and  thriving  race. 
They  boasted  that  their  hardware  was  highly  esteemed,  not 
indeed,  as  now^at  Pekin  and  Lima, at  Bokhara  and  Timbuctoo, 
but  in  London  and  even  as  far  off  as  Ireland.  They  had  ac- 
quired a  less  honorable  renown  as  coiners  of  bad  money.  In 
allusion  to  their  spurious  groats,  the  Tory  party  had  fixed  on 
demagogues  who  hypocritically  affected  zeal  against  Popery, 
the  nickname  of  Birminghams.  Yet  in  1685  the  population, 
which  is  now  little  less  than  two  hundred  thousand,  did  not 
amount  to  four  thousand.  Birmingham  buttons  were  just  be- 
ginning to  be  known ;  of  Birmingham  guns  nobody  had  yet 
heard ;  and  the  place  whence,  two  generations  later,  the  mag- 
nificent editions  of  Baskerville  went  forth  to  astonish  all  the 
librarians  of  Europe,  did  not  contain  a  single  regular  shop 
tvhere  a  Bible  or  an  almanac  could  be  bought.  On  market 
days  a  bookseller  named  Michael  Johnson,  the  father  of  the 
great  Samuel  Johnson,  came  over  from  Lichfield,  and  opened 

*  Hunter's  History  of  Hallamshire. 


268  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

a  stall  during  a  few  hours.     This  supply  of  literature  was  long 
found  adequate  to  the  demand.* 

These  four  chief  seats  of  our  great  manufactures  deserve 
especial  mention.  It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  all  the 
populous  and  opulent  hives  of  industry  which,  a  hundred  ana 
fifty  years  ago,  were  hamlets  without  a  parish  church,  or  des- 
olate moors,  inhabited  only  by  grouse  and  wild  deer.  Nor 
has  the  change  been  less  signal  in  those  cutlets  by  which  the 
products  of  the  English  looms  and  forges  are  poured  forth  over 
the  four  quarters  of  the  world.  At  present  Liverpool  contains 
about  three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  The  shipping  regis- 
tered at  her  port  amounts  to  between  four  and  five  hundred 
thousand  tons.  Into  her  custom-house  has  been  repeatedly 
paid  in  one  year  a  sum  more  than  thrice  as  great  as  the  whole 
income  of  the  English  crown  in  1685.  The  receipts  of  her 
post-office,  even  since  the  great  reduction  of  the  duty,  exceed 
the  sum  which  the  postage  of  the  whole  kingdom  yielded  to 
the  Duke  of  York.  Her  endless  docks  and  warehouses  are 
among  the  wonders  *of  the  world.  Yet  even  those  docks  and 
warehouses  seem  hardly  to  suffice  for  the  gigantic  trade  of  the 
Mersey  ;  and  already  a  rival  city  is  growing  fast  on  the  oppo- 
site shore.  In  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second,  Liverpool  was 
described  as  a  rising  town  which  had  recently  made  great  ad- 
vances, and  which  maintained  a  profitable  intercourse  with 
Ireland  and  with  the  sugar  colonies.  The  customs  had  multi- 
plied eightfold  within  sixteen  years,  and  amounted  to  what  was 
then  considered  the  immense  sum  of  fifteen  thousand  pounds 
annually.  But  the  population  can  hardly  have  exceeded  four 
thousand.  The  shipping  was  about  fourteen  hundred  tons, 
less  than  the  tonnage  of  a  single  modern  Indiaman  of  the  first 
class  ;  and  the  whole  number  of  seamen  belonging  to  the  port 
cannot  be  estimated  at  more  than  two  hundred.! 

*  Dugdale's  "Warwickshire;  Blome's  Britannia,  1673  ;  North's  Ex- 
amen,  321 ;  Preface  to  Absalom  and  Achitophel ;  Hutton's  History 
of  Birmingham;  BosweLL's  Life  of  Johnson.  In  1690  the  burials  at 
Birmingham  were  150,  the  baptisms  125.  I  think  it  probable  that  the 
annual  mortality  was  one  in  twenty-five.  In  London  it  was  con- 
siderably greater.  An  historian  of  Nottingham,  half  a  century  later, 
boasted  of  the  extraordinary  salubrity  of  his  town,  where  the  annual 
mortality  was  one  in  thirty.  See  Bering's  History  of  Nottingham. 

t  Blome's  Britannia ;  Gregson'u  Antiquities  of  the  County  Pala- 
tine and  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  Part  II. ;  Petition  from  Liverpool  in  the 
Privy  Council  Book,  May  10,  1686.  In  1690  the  burials  at  Liverpool 
were  151,  the  baptisms  120.  In  1844  the  net  receipt  of  the  customs 
.at  Liverpool  was  4,365,526J.  Is.  8d.  ' 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  269 

Such  has  been  the  progress  of  those  towns  where  wealth  ig 
created  and  accumulated.  Not  less  rapid  has  been  the  prog- 
ress of  towns  of  a  very  different  kind,  towns  in  which  wealth, 
created  and  accumulated  elsewhere,  is  expended  for  purposes 
of  health  and  recreation.  Some  of  the  most  remarkable  of 
these  towns  have  sprung  into  existence  since  the  time  of  the 
Stuarts.  Cheltenham  is  now  a  greater  city  than  any  which 
the  kingdom  contained  in  the  seventeenth  century,  London 
alone  excepted.  But  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth,  Cheltenham  was  mentioned  by 
ocal  historians  merely  as  a  rural  parish  lying  under  the  Cots- 
wold  Hills,  and  affording  good  ground,  both  for  tillage  and 
pasture.  Corn  grew  and  cattle  browsed  over  the  space  now 
covered  by  that  gay  succession  of  streets  and  villas.*  Brigh- 
ton was  described  as  a  place  which  had  once  been  thriving, 
which  had  possessed  many  small  fishing  barks,  and  which 
had,  when  at  the  height  of  prosperity,  contained  above  two 
thousand  inhabitants ;  but  which  was  sinking  fast  into  decay. 
The  sea  was  gradually  gaining  on  the  buildings,  which  at 
length  almost  entirely  disappeared.  Ninety  years  ago  the 
ruins  of  an  old  fort  were  to  be  seen  lying  among  the  pebbles 
and  -sea- weed  on  the  beach  ;  and  ancient  men  could  still  ppint 
out  the  traces  of  foundations  on  a  spot  where  a  street  of  more 
than  a  hundred  huts  had  been  swallowed  up  by  the  waves. 
So  desolate  was  the  place  after  this  calamity,  that  the  vicarage 
was  thought  scarcely  worth  having.  A  few  poor  fishermen, 
however,  still  continued  to  dry  their  nets  on  those  cliffs,  on 
which  now  a  town  more  than  'twice  as  large  and  populous  as 
the  Bristol  of  the  Stuarts  presents  mile  after  mile,  its  gay  and 
fantastic  front  to  the  sea.t 

England,  however,  was  not,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
destitute  of  watering  places.  The  gentry  of  Derbyshire  and 
of  the  neighboring  counties  repaired  to  Buxton,  where  they 
were  crowded  into  low  wooden  sheds,  and  regaled  with  oat- 
cake, and  with  a  viand  which  the  hosts  called  mutton,  but 
which  the  guests  strongly  suspected  to  be  dog.f  Tunbridge 
Wells,  lying  within  a  day's  journey  of  the  capital,  and  in  one 
of  the  richest  and  most  highly  civilized  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
had  much  greater  attractions.  At  present  we  see  there  a 


*  Atkyns's  Gloucestershire, 
t  Magna  Britannia.     Grose's  Antiquities. 
J  Tour  in  Derbyshire,  by  Thomas  Browne,  son  of  Sir  Thomas. 
23* 


270  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

town  which  would,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  have  ranked, 
in  population,  fourth  or  fifth  among  the  towns  of  England. 
The  brilliancy  of  the  shops  and  the  luxury  of  the  private 
dwellings  far  surpass  any  thing  that  England  could  then 
show.  When  the  court,  soon  after  the  Restoration,  visited 
Tunbridge  Wells,  there  was  no  town  there  ;  but,  within  a  mile 
of  the  spring,  rustic  cottages,  somewhat  cleaner  and  neater 
than  the  ordinary  cottages  of  that  time,  were  scattered  over 
the  heath.  Some  of  these  cabins  were  movable,  and  were 
carried  on  sledges  from  one  part  of  the  common  to  another. 
To  these  huts  men  of  fashion,  wearied  with  the  din  and  smoke 
of  London,  sometimes  came  in  the  summer  to  breathe  fresh 
air,  and  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  rural  life.  During  the  season 
a  kind  of  fair  was  daily  held  near  the  fountain.  The  wives 
and  daughters  of  the  Kentish  farmers  came  from  the  neigh- 
boring villages  with  cream,  cherries,  wheat-ears,  and  quails. 
To  chaffer  with  them,  to  flirt  with  them,  to  praise  their  straw 
hats  and  tight  heels,  was  a  refreshing  pastime  to  voluptuaries 
sick  of  the  airs  of  actresses  and  maids  of  honor.  Milliners, 
toymen,  and  jewellers,  came  down  from  London,  and  opened 
a  bazar  under  the  trees.  In  one  booth  the  politician  might 
find  his  coffee  and  the  London  Gazette  ;  in  another  were  gam- 
blers playing  deep  at  basset ;  and,  on  fine  evenings,  the  fiddles 
were  in  attendance,  and  there  were  morris  dances  on  the 
elastic  turf  of  the  bowling  green.  In  1685,  a  subscription 
had  just  been  raided  among  those  who  frequented  the  wells  for 
building  a  church,  which  the  Tories,  who  then  domineered 
every  where,  insisted  on  dedicating  to  Saint  Charles  the 
Martyr.* 

But  at  the  head  of  the  English  watering  places,  without  a 
rival,  was  Bath.  The  springs  of  that  city  had  been  renowned 
from  the  days  of  the  Romans.  It  had  been,  during  many 
centuries,  the  seat  of  a  bishop.  The  sick  repaired  thither  from 
every  part  of  the  realm.  The  king  sometimes  held  his  court 
there.  Nevertheless,  Bath  was  then  a  maze  of  only  four  or 
five  hundred  houses,  crowded  within  an  old  wall  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  the  Avon.  Pictures  of  what  were  considered  as  the 
finest  of  those  houses  are  still  extant,  and  greatly  resemble 
the  lowest  rag  shops  and  pothouses  of  Radcliffe  Highway. 
Even  then,  indeed,  travellers  complained  of  the  narrowness 

•  M6moires  de  Grammont ;  Hasted's  History  of  Kent ;  Tunbridge 
Wells,  a  Comedy,  1678;  Causton's  Tunbridgialia,  1688;  Metellus,  a 
poem  on  Tunbridge  Wells,  1693. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  271 

and  meanness  of  the  streets.  That  beautiful  city,  which 
charms  even  eyes  familiar  with  the  masterpieces  of  Bramante 
and  Palladio,  and  which  the  genius  of  Anstey  and  of  Smollett, 
of  Frances  Burney  and  of  'Jane  Austen,  has  made  classic 
ground,  had  not  begun  to  exist.  Milsorh  Street  itself  was  an 
open  field  lying  far  beyond  the  walls ;  and  hedgerows  inter- 
sected the  space  which  is  now  covered  by  the  Crescent  and 
the  Circus.  As  to  the  comforts  and  luxuries  which  were  to 
be  found  in  the  interior  of  the  houses  of  Bath  by  the  fashion- 
able visitors  who  resorted  thither  in  search  of  health  or  amuse- 
ment, we  possess  information  more  complete  and  minute  than 
can  generally  be  obtained  on  such  subjects.  A  writer  who  pub- 
lished an  account  of  that  city  about  sixty  years  after  the  Revolu- 
tion has  accurately  described  the  changes  which  had  taken  place 
within  his  own  recollection.  He  assures  us  that  in  his  younger 
days  the  gentlemen  who  visited  the  springs  slept  in  rooms  hardly 
as  good  as  the  garrets  which  he  lived  to  see  occupied  by  foot- 
men. The  floors  of  the  dining-rooms  were  uncarpeted,  and 
were  colored  brown  with  a  wash  made  of  soot  and  small  beer, 
in  order  to  hide  the  dirt.  Not  a  wainscot  was  painted.  Not 
a  hearth  or  chimney-piece  was  of  marble.  A  slab  of  com- 
mon freestone  and  fire  irons  which  had  cost  from  three  to 
four  shillings  were  thought  sufficient  for  any  fireplace.  The 
best  apartments  were  hung  with  coarse  woollen  stuff",  and  were 
furnished  with  rush-bottomed  chairs.  Readers  who  take  an 
interest  in  the  progress  of  civilization  and  of  the  useful  arts 
will  be  grateful  to  the  humble  topographer  who  has  recorded 
these  facts,  and  will  perhaps  wish  that  historians  of  far  higher 
pretensions  had  sometimes  spared  a  few  pages  from  military 
evolutions  and  political  intrigues,  for  the  purpose  of  letting  us 
know  how  the  parlors  and  bedchambers  of  our  ancestors 
looked.* 

The  position  of  London,  relatively  to  the  other  towns  of  the 
empire,  was,  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second,  far  higher 
than  at  present.  For  at  present  the  population  of  London  is 
little  more  than  six  times  the  population  of  Manchester  or 
of  Liverpool.  In  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second  the  popula- 

*  See  Wood's  History  of  Bath,  1749 ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  June  27, 
1654 ;  Pepys's  Diary,  June  12,  1668 ;  Stukeley's  Itinerarum  Curiosum ; 
Collinson's  Somersetshire.  I  have  consulted  several  old  maps  and 
pictures  of  Bath,  particularly  one  curious  map  which  is  surrounded 
oy  views  of  the  principal  buildings.  It  bears  the  date  of  1717. 


272  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

tion  of  London  was  more  than  seventeen  times  the  populatioi* 
of  Bristol  or  of  Norwich.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any 
other  instance  can  be  mentioned  of  a  great  kingdom  in  which 
the  first  city  was  more  than  seventeen  times  as  large  as  the 
second.  There  is  reason  to .  believe  that,  in  1685,  London 
had  been,  during  about  half  a  century,  the  most  populous 
capital  in  Europe.  The  inhabitants,  who  are  now  at  least 
nineteen  hundred  thousand,  were  then  probably  a  little  more 
than  half  a  million.*  London  had  in  the  world  only  one 
commercial  rival,  now  long  outstripped,  the  mighty  and  opulent 
Amsterdam.  English  writers  boasted  of  the  forest  of  masts 
and  yard  arms  which  covered  the  river  from  the  bridge  to 
the  Tower,  and  of  the  incredible  sums  which  were  collected 
at  the  Custom-House  in  Thames  Street.  There  is,  indeed, 
no  doubt  that  the  trade  of  the  metropolis  then  bore  a  far 
greater  proportion  than  at  present  to  the  whole  trade  of  the 
country ;  yet  to  our  generation  the  honest  vaunting  of  our 
ancestors  must  appear  almost  ludicrous.  The  shipping  which 
they  thought  incredibly  great  appears  not  to  have  .exceeded 
seventy  thousand  tons.  This  was,  indeed,  then  more  than  a 
third  of  the  whole  tonnage  of  the  kingdom,  but  is  now  less 
than  a  fourth  of  the  tonnage  of  Newcastle,  and  is  nearly 
equalled  by  the  tonnage  of  the  steam  vessels  of  the  Thames. 
The  customs  of  London  amounted,  in  1685,  to  about  three 
hundred  and  thirty  thousand  pounds  a  year.  In  our  time 
the  net  duty  paid  annually,  at  the  same  place,  exceeds  ten 
millions.t 

Whoever  examines  the  maps  of  London  which  were  pub- 
lished towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second 
will  see  that  only  the  nucleus  of  the  present  capital  then 
existed.  The  town  did  not,  as  now,  fade  by  imperceptible 
degrees  into  the  country.  No  long  avenues  of  villas,  em- 
bowered in  lilachs  and  laburnums,  extended  from  the  great 
centre  of  wealth  and  civilization  almost  to  the  boundaries  of 
Middlesex  and  far  into  the  heart  of  Kent  and  Surrey.  In  the 
east,  no  part  of  the  immense  line  of  warehouses  and  artificial 
lakes  which  now  spreads  from  the  Tower  to  Blackwall  had 

*•  According  to  King,  530,000. 

t  Macpherson's  History  of  Commerce.  Chalmers's  Estimate.  Cham' 
berlayne's  State  of  England,  1684.  The  tonnage  of  the  steamers 
belonging  to  the  port  of  London  was,  at  the  end  of  1847,  about 
60,000  tons.  The  customs  of  the  port,  from  1842  to  1845,  very  nearly 
averaged  11,000,000. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  273 

even  been  projected.  On  the  west,  scarcely  one  of  those 
stately  piles  of  building  which  are  inhabited  by  the  noble 
and  wealthy  was  in  existence  ;  and  Chelsea,  which  is  now 
peopled  by  more  than  forty  thousand  human  beings,  was  a 
quiet  country  village  with  scarce  a  thousand  inhabitants.* 
On  the  north,  cattle  fed,  and  sportsmen  wandered  with  dogs 
and  guns,  over  the  site  of  the  borough  of  Marylebone,  and. 
over  far  the  greater  part  of  the  space  now  covered  by  the 
boroughs  of  Finsbury  and  of  the  Tower  Hamlets.  Islington 
was  almost  a  solitude  ;  and  poets  loved  to  contrast  its  silence 
ind  repose  with  the  din  and  turmoil  of  the  monster  LondonJ" 
On  the  south  the  capital  is  now  connected  with  its  suburb 
by  several  bridges,  not  inferior  in  magnificence  and  solidity 
to  the  noblest  works  of  the  Caesars.  In  1685,  a  single  line 
of  irregular  arches,  overhung  by  piles  of  mean  and  crazy 
houses,  and  garnished  after  a  fashion  worthy  of  the  naked 
barbarians  of  Dahomy,  with  scores  -of  mouldering  heads, 
impeded  the  navigation  of  the  river. 

Of  the  metropolis,  the  City,  properly  so  called,  was  the 
most  important  division.  At  the  time  of  the  Restoration  it 
had  been  built,  for  the  most  part,  of  wood  and  plaster ;  the 
few  bricks  that  were  used  were  ill  baked  ;  the  booths  where 
goods  were  exposed  to  sale  projected  far  into  the  streets,  and 
were  oveihung  by  the  upper  stories.  A  few  specimens  of 
this  architecture  may  still  be  seen  in  those  districts  which 
were  not  reached  by  the  great  fire.  That  fire  had,  in  a  few 
days,  covered  a  space  of  little  less  than  a  square  mile  with 
the  ruins  of  eighty-nine  churches  and  of  thirteen  thousand 
houses.  But  the  city  had  risen  again  with  a  celerity  which 
had  excited  the  admiration  of  neighboring  countries.  Un- 
fortunately, the  old  lines  of  the  streets  had  been  to  a  great 
extent  preserved  ;  and  those  lines,  originally  traced  in  an  age 
when  even  princesses  performed  their  journeys  on  horseback, 
were  often  too  narrow  to  allow  wheeled  carriages  to  pass 
each  other  with  ease,  and  were  therefore  ill  adapted  for  the 
residence  of  wealthy  persons  in  an  age  when  a  coach  and  six 
was  a  fashionable  luxury.  The  style  of  building  was,  how- 
ever, far  superior  to  that  of  the  city  which  had  perished. 
The  ordinary  material  was  brick,  of  much  better  quality  than 

*  Lysons,  Environs  of  London.    The  baptisms  at  Chelsea,  between 
1680  and  1690,  were  only  forty-two  a  year, 
t  Cowley,  Discourse  of  Solitude. 
23* 


HISTORY    Cff    ENGLAND. 

had  formerly  been  used.  On  the  sites  of  the  ancient  parish 
churches  had  arisen  a  multitude  of  new  domes,  towers,  and 
spires  which  bore  the  mark  of  the  fertile  genius  of  Wren 
In  every  place  save  one  the  traces  of  the  great  devastation 
had  been  completely  effaced.  But  the  crowds  of  workmen, 
the  scaffolds. and  the  masses  of  hewn  stone,  were  still  to  be 
seen  where  the  noblest  of  Protestant  temples  was  slowly 
rising  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  cathedral  of  St.  Paul.* 

The  whole  character  of  the  City  has,  since  that  time, 
undergone  a  complete  change.  At  present  the  bankers,  the 
merchants,  and  the  chief  shopkeepers,  repair  thither  on  six 
mornings  of  every  week  for  the  transaction  of  business  ^  but 
they  reside  in  other  quarters  of  the  metropolis,  or  at  suburban 
country  seats  surrounded  by  shrubberies  and  flower  gardens. 
This  revolution  in  private  habits  has  produced  a  political 
revolution  of  no  small  importance.  The  City  is  no  longer 
regarded  by  the  wealthiest  traders  with  that  attachment  which 
every  man  naturally  feels  for  his  home.  It  is  no  longer 
associated  in  their  minds  with  domestic  affections  and  endear- 
ments. The  fireside,  the  nursery,  the  social  table,  the  quiet 
bed  are  not  there.  Lombard  Street  and  Threadneedle  Street 
are  merely  places  where  men  toil  and  accumulate.  They  go 
elsewhere  to  enjoy  and  to  expend.  K)n  a  Sunday,  or  in  an 
evening  after -the  hours  of  business,  some  courts  and  alleys, 
which  a  few  hours  before  had  been  alive  with  hurrying  feet 
and  anxious  faces,  are  as  silent  as  a  country  churchyard. 
The  chiefs  of  the  mercantile  interest  are  no  longer  citizens. 
They  avoid,  they  almost  contemn,  municipal  honors  and  duties. 
Those  honors  and  duties  are  abandoned  to  men  who,  though 
useful  and  highly  respectable,  seldom  belong  to  the  princely 
commercial  houses  of  which  the  names  are  held  hi  honor 
throughout  the  world. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  the  City  was  the  merchant's 
residence.  Those  mansions  of  the  great  old  burghers  which 
still  exist  have  been  turned  into  counting-houses  and  ware- 

*  The  fullest  and  most  trustworthy  information  about  the  state  of 
the  buildings  of  London  at  this  time  is  to  be  derived  from  the  maps 
and  drawings  in  the  British  Museum  and  in  the  Pcpysian  Library 
The  badness  of  the  bricks  in  the  old  buildings  of  London  is  particu- 
larly mentioned  in  the  Travels  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo.  There 
is  an  account  of  the  works  at  St.  Paul's  in  Ward's  London  Spy.  I 
am  almost  ashamed  to  quote  such  nauseous  balderdash ;  but  I  have 
been  forced  to  descend  even  lower,  if  possible,  in  search  of  material* 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  275 

houses  ;  but  it  is  evident  that  they  were  originally  not  inferior 
in  magnificence  to  the  dwellings  which  were  then  inhabited 
by  the  nobility.  They  sometimes  stand  in  retired  and  gloomy 
courts,  and  are  accessible  only  by  inconvenient  passages ;  but 
their  dimensions  are  ample,  and  their  aspect  stately.  The 
entrances  are  decorated  with  richly-carved  pillars  and  can- 
opies. The  staircases  and  landing-places  are  not  wanting  in 
grandeur.  The  floors  are  sometimes  of  wood,  tessellated 
after  the  fashion  of  France.  The  palace  of  Sir  Robert 
Clayton,  in  the  Old  Jewry,  contained  a  superb  banqueting  room 
wainscoted  with  cedar,  and  adorned  with  battles  of  gods  and 
giants  in  fresco.*  Sir  Dudley  North  expended  four  thousand 
pounds,  a  sum  which  would  then  have  been  important  to  a 
duke,  on  the  rich  furniture  of  his  reception  rooms  in  Basing- 
hall  Street.t  In  such  abodes,  under  the  last  Stuarts,  the 
heads  of  the  great _  firms  lived  splendidly  and  hospitably. 
To  their  dwelling-place  they  were  bound  by  the  strongest 
ties  of  interest  and  affection.  There  they  had  passed  their 
youth,  had  made  their  friendships,  had  courted  their  wives, 
had  seen  their  children  grow  up,  had  laid  the  remains  of  their 
parents  in  the  earth,  and  expected  that  their  own  remains 
would  be  laid.  That  intense  patriotism  which  is  peculiar  to 
the  members  of  societies  congregated  within  a  narrow  space 
was,  in  such  circumstances,  strongly  developed.  London 
was,  to  the  Londoner,  what  Athens  was  to  the  Athenian  of 
the  age  of  Pericles,  what  Florence  was  to  the  Florentine 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  citizen  was  proud  of  the 
grandeur  of  his  city,  punctilious  about  her  claims  to  respect, 
ambitious  of  her  offices,  and  zealous  for  her  franchises. 

At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  the  pride 
of  the  Londoners  was  smarting  from  a  cruel  mortification. 
The  old  charter  had  been  taken  away,  and  the  magistracy  had 
been  remodelled.  All  the  civic  functionaries  were  Tories  ;  and 
the  Whigs,  though  in  numbers  and  in  wealth  superior  to  their 
opponents,  found  themselves  excluded  from  every  local  dignity. 
Nevertheless,  the  external  splendor  of  the  municipal  govern- 
ment was  not  diminished,  nay,  was  rather  increased  by  this 
change.  For,  under  the  administration  of  some  Puritans 
who  had  lately  borne  rule,  the  ancient  fame  of  the  City  for 
good  cheer  had  declined  :  but  under  the  new  magistrates,  who 


*  Evelyn's  Diary,  Sept.  20,  1672. 

t  Roger  North's  Life  of  Sir  Dudley  North. 


276  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

belonged  to  a  more  festive  party,  and  at  whose  boards  guests 
of  xank  and  fashion  from  beyond  Temple  Bar  were  often  seen, 
the  Guildhall  and  the  halls  of  the  great  companies  were  enli- 
vened by  many  sumptuous  banquets.  During  these  repasts, 
odes,  composed  by  the  poet  laureate  of  the  corporation,  in 
praise  of  the  king,  the  duke,  and  the  mayor,  were  sung  to 
music.  The  drinking  was  deep,  the  shouting  loud.  An  ob- 
servant Tory,  who  had  often  shared  in  these  revels,  has 
remarked  that  the  practice  of  huzzaing  after  drinking  healths 
dates  from  this  joyous  period.* 

The  magnificence  displayed  by  the  first  civic  magistrate 
was  almost  regal.  The  gilded  coach,  indeed,  which  is  now 
annually  admired  by  the  crowd,  was  not  yet  a  part  of  his" 
state.  On  great  occasions  he  appeared  on  horseback,  attend- 
ed by  a  long  cavalcade  inferior  in  magnificence  only  to  that 
which,  before  a  coronation,  escorted  the  sovereign  from  the 
Tower  to  Westminster.  The  Lord  Mayor  was  never  seen  in 
public  without  his  rich  robe,  his  hood  of  black  velvet,  his  gold 
chain,  his  jewel,  and  a  great  attendance  of  harbingers  and 
guards.t  Nor  did  the  world  find  any  thing  ludicrous  in 
the  pomp  which  constantly  surrounded  him.  For  it  was  not 
more  than  proportioned  to  the  place  which,  as  wielding  the 
strength  and  representing  the  dignity  of  the  city  of  London, 
he  was  entitled  to  occupy  in  the  state.  That  city,  being  then 
not  only  without  equal  in  the  country,  but  without  second,  had, 
during  five  and  forty  years,  exercised  almost  as  great  an  influ- 
ence on  the  politics  of  England  as  Paris  has,  in  our  own  time, 
exercised  on  the  politics  of  France.  In  intelligence  London 
was  greatly  in  advance  of  every  other  part  of  the  kingdom. 
A  government,  supported  and  trusted  by  London,  could  in 
a  day  obtain  such  pecuniary  means  as  it  would  have  taken 
months  to  collect  from  the  rest  of  the  island.  Nor  were  the 
military  resources  of  the  capital  to  be  despised.  The  power 
which  the  lord  lieutenants  exercised  in  other  parts  of  the  king- 
dom was  in  London  intrusted  to  a  commission  of  eminent 
citizens.  Under  the  orders  of  this  commission  were  twelve 

*  North's  Examcn.  This  most  amusing  writer  has  preserved  a 
specimen  of  the  sublime  raptures  in  which  the  Pindar  of  the  City 
indulged :  — 

"The  worshipful  Sir  John  Moor  ! 

After  age  that  name  adore  !  " 

t  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684 ;  Anglise  Metropolis 
1690  :  So Ym our"' s  London,  1734, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND  277 

regiments  of  foot  and  two  regiments  of  horse.  An  army  of 
drapers'  apprentices  and  journeymen  tailors,  with  common 
councilmen  for  captains  and  aldermen  for  colonels,  might  not 
indeed  have  been  able  to  stand  its  ground  against  regulai 
troops ;  but  there  were  then  very  few  regular  troops  in  the 
kingdom.  A  town,  therefore,  which  could  send  forth,  at  an 
hour's  notice,  twenty  thousand  men,  abounding  in  natural  cour- 
age, provided  with  tolerable  weapons,  and  not  altogether  un- 
tinctured  with  martial  discipline,  could  not  but  be  a  valuable 
ally  and  a  formidable  enemy.  It  was  not  forgotten  that  Hamp- 
den  and  Pym  had  been  protected  from  lawless  tyranny  by  the 
London  trainbands  ;  that,  in  the  great  crisis  of  the  civil  war, 
the  London  trainbands  had  marched  to  raise  the  siege  of 
Gloucester  ;  or  that,  in  the  movement  against  the  military  ty- 
rants which  followed  the  downfall  of  Richard  Cromwell,  the 
London  trainbands  had  borne  a  signal  part.  In  truth,  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that,  but  for  the  hostility  of  the  City, 
Charles  the  First  would  never  have  been  vanquished,  and  that, 
without  the  help  of  the  City,  Charles  the  Second  could  scarce- 
ly have  been  restored. 

These  considerations  may  serve  to  explain  why,  in  spite  of 
that  attraction  which  had,  during  a  long  course  of  years,  grad- 
ually drawn  the  aristocracy  westward,  a  few  men  of  high  rank 
had  continued,  till  a  very  recent  period,  to  dwell  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  Exchange  and  of  the  Guildhall.  Shaftesbury  and  Buck- 
ingham, while  engaged  in  bitter  and  unscrupulous  opposition  to 
the  government,  had  thought  that  they  could  nowhere  carry  on 
their  intrigues  so  conveniently  or  so  securely  as  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  city  magistrates  and  the  city  militia.  Shaftesbury 
had  therefore  lived  in  Aldersgate  Street,  at  a  house  which  may 
still  easily  be  known  by  pilasters  and  wreaths,  the  graceful  work 
of  Inigo.  Buckingham  had  ordered  his  mansion  near  Charing 
Cross,  once  the  abode  of  the  Archbishops  of  York,  to  be  pulled 
down ;  and,  while  streets  and  alleys  which  are  still  named  after 
him  were  rising  on  that  site,  chose  to  reside  in  Dowgate.* 

These,  however,  were  rare  exceptions.  Almost  all  the 
noble  families  of  England  had  long  migrated  beyond  the  walls. 
The  district  where  most  of  their  town  houses  stood  lies  be- 
tween the  city  and  the  regions  which  are  now  considered  as 
fashionable.  A  few  great  men  still  retained  their  hereditary 
hotels  between  the  Strand  and  the  river.  The  stately  dwell- 

*  North's  Examen,  116.    "Wood,  Ath.  Ox-     Shaftesbury. 
VOL.  I.  24 


278  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

ings  on  the  south  and  west  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  the  Piazza 
of  Covent  Garden,  Southampton  Square,  which  is  now  called 
Bloomsbury  Square,  and  King's  Square  in  Soho  Fields,  which 
is  now  called  Soho  Square,  were  among  the  favorite  spots. 
Foreign  princes  were  carried  to  see  Bloomsbury  Square,  as 
one  of  the  wonders  of  England.*  Soho  Square,  which  had 
just  been  built,  was  to  our  ancestors  a  subject  of  pride  with 
which  their  posterity  will  hardly  sympathize.  Monmouth 
Square  had  been  the  name  while  the  fortunes  of  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth  flourished  ;  and  on  "the  southern  side  towered  his 
mansion.  The  front,  though  ungraceful,  was  lofty  and  richly 
adorned.  The  walls  of  the  principal  apartments  were  finely 
sculptured  with  fruit,  foliage,  and  armorial  bearings,  and  were 
hurig  with  embroidered  satin.t  Every  trace  of  this  magnifi- 
cence has  long  disappeared ;  and  no  aristocratical  mansion 
is  to  be  found  in  that  once  aristocratical  quarter.  A  little 
way  north  from  Holborn,  and  on  the  verge  of  the  pastures 
and  cornfields,  rose  two  celebrated  palaces,  each  with  an  am- 
ple garden.  One  of  them,  then  called  Southampton  House, 
and  subsequently  Bedford  House,  was  removed  about  fifty  years 
ago  to  make  room  for  a  new  city,  which  now  covers,  with  its 
Squares,  streets,  and  churches,  a  vast  area,  renowned  in  the 
seventeenth  century  for  peaches  and  snipes.  The  other,  Mon- 
*ague  House,  celebrated  for  its  frescoes  and  furniture,  was,  a 
few  months  after  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second,  burned  to 
the  ground,  and  was  speedily  succeeded  by  a  more  magnifi- 
cent Montague  House,  which,  having  been  long  the  repository 
of  such  various  and  precious  treasures  of  art,  science,  and 
learning,  as  were  scarce  ever  before  assembled  under  a  single 
roof,  has  just  given  place  to  an  edifice  more  magnificent  still. J 
Nearer  to  the  court,  on  a  space  called  Saint  James's  Fields, 
had  just  been  built  Saint  James's  Square  and  Jermyn  Street. 
Saint  James's  Church  had  recently  been  opened  for  the 
accommodation  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  new  quarter.  §  Gold- 
en Square,  which  was  in  the  next  generation  inhabited  by 
lords  and  ministers  of  state,  had  not  yet  been  begun.  Indeed 
the  only  dwellings  to  be  seen  on  the  north  of  Piccadilly  were 

*  Travels  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo. 

t  Chamberlayne's  State  of   England,  1684 ;    Pennant's  London  j 
Smith's  Life  of  Nollckens. 

Evelyn's  Diary,  Oct.  10,  1683,  Jan.  19,  16S&. 

1  Jac.  II.  c.  22 ;  Evelyn  a  Diary,  Dec.  7,  1684. 


HISTORY    OF    Eb  GLAND.  279 

three  or  four  isolated  and  almost  rural  mansions,  of  which  the 
most  celebrated  was  the  costly  pile  erected  by  Clarendon, 
and  nicknamed  Dunkirk  House.  It  had  been  purchased  after 
its  founder's  downfall  by  the  Duke  of  Albemarle.  The  Clar- 
endon Hotel  and  Albemarle  Street  still  preserve  the  memory 
of  the  site.  ::>'&'.•; 

He  who  then  rambled  to  what  is  now  the  gayest  and  most 
crowded*  part  of  Regent  Street  found  himself  in  a  solitude, 
and  was  sometimes  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  shot  at  a  wood- 
cock.* On  the  north  the  Oxford  road  ran  between  hedges. 
Three  or  four  hundred  yards  to  the  south  were  the  garden 
walls  of  a  few  great  houses,  which  were  considered  as  quite 
out  of  town.  On  the  west  was  a  meadow  renowned  for  a  spring 
from  which,  long  afterwards,  Conduit  Street  was  named.  On 
the  east  was  a  field  not  to  be  passed  without  a  shudder  by  any 
Londoner  of  that  age.  There,  as  in  a  place  far  from  the 
haunts  of  men,  had  been  dug,  twenty  years  before,  when  the 
great  plague  was  raging,  a  pit  into  which  the  dead  carts  had 
nightly  shot  corpses  by  scores.  It  was  popularly  believed 
that  the  earth  was  deeply  tainted  with  infection,  and  could  not 
oe  disturbed  without  imminent  risk  to  human  life.  No  foun- 
dations were  laid  there  till  two  generations  had  passed  without 
any  return  of  the  pestilence,  and  till  the  ghastly  spot  had 
long  been  surrounded  by  buildings.t 

We  should  greatly  err  if  we  were  to  suppose  that  anjr 
of  the  streets  and  squares  then  bore  the  same  aspect  as  at 
present.  The  great  majority  of  the  houses,  indeed,  have, 
since  that  time,  been  wholly,  or  in  great  part,  rebuilt.  If  the 
most  fashionable  parts  of  the  capital  could  be  placed  before 
us,  such  as  they  then  were,  we  should  be  disgusted  by  their 
squalid  appearance,  and  poisoned  by  their  noisome  atmos- 
phere. In  Covent  Garden  a  filthy  and  noisy  market  was 
held  close  to  the  dwellings  of  the  great.  Fruit  women 
screamed,  carters  fought,  cabbage  stalks  and  rotten  apples 
accumulated  in  heaps  at  the  thresholds  of  the  Countess  of 
Berkshire  and  of  the  Bishop  of  Durham.} 

*  Old  General  Oglethorpe,  who  lived  to  1785,  used  to  boast  that 
Ae  had  shot  here  in  Anne's  reign.  See  Pennant's  London,  and  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine  for  July,  1785. 

t  The  pest  field  will  be  seen  in  maps  'rf  London  as  late  as  the  end 
of  George  the  First's  reign. 

J  See  a  very  curious  plan  of  Covent  Garden  made  about  1690,  and 
engraved  for  "Smith's  History  of  Westminster.  See  also  Hogarth's 
Morning,  painted  •while  some  of  the  houses  in  the  Piazza  were  still 
occupied  by  people  of  fashion. 


280  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  centre  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  was  an  open  space 
where  the  rabble  congregated  every  evening,  within  a  few 
yards  of  Cardigan  House  and  Winchester  House,  to  hear 
mountebanks  harangue,  to  see  bears  dance,  and  to  set  dogs  at 
oxen.  Rubbish  was  shot  in  every  part  of  the  area.  Horses 
were  exercised  there.  The  beggars  were  as  noisy  and  impor- 
tunate as  in  the  worst  governed  cities  of  the  Continent.  A 
Lincoln's  Inn  mumper  was  a  proverb.  The  whole  fraternity 
knew  the  arms  and  liveries  of  every  charitably  disposed 
grandee  in  the  neighborhood,  and,  as  soon  as  his  lordship's 
coach  and  six  appeared,  came  hopping  and  crawling  in  crowds 
to  persecute  him.  These  disorders  lasted,  in  spite  of  many 
accidents  and  of  some  legal  proceedings,  till,  in  the  reign  of 
George  the  Second,  Sir  Joseph  Jekyll,  Master  of  the  Rolls, 
was  knocked  down  and  nearly  killed  in  the  middle  of  the 
square.  Then  at  length  palisades  were  set  up,  and  a  pleasant 
garden  laid  out.* 

Saint  James's  Square  was  a  receptacle  for  all  the  offal  and 
cinders,  for  all  the  dead  cats  and  dead  dogs  of  Westminster. 
At  one  time  a  cudgel  player  kept  the  ring  there.  At  another 
time  an  impudent  squatter  settled  himself  there,  and  built  a 
shed  for  rubbish  under  the  windows  of  the  gilded  saloons  in 
which  the  first  magnates  of  the  realm,  Norfolks,  Ormonds, 
Kents,  and  Pembrokes,  gave  banquets  and  balls.  It  was  not 
till  these  nuisances  had  lasted  through  a  whole  generation,  and 
till  much  had  been  written  about  them,  that  the  inhabitants 
applied  to  parliament  for  permission  to  put  up  rails,  and  to 
plant  trees.t 

When  such  was  the  state  of  the  quarter  inhabited  by  the 
most  luxurious  portion  of  society,  we  may  easily  believe  that 

*  London  Spy ;  Tom  Brown's  Comical  View  of  London  and  West- 
minster; Turner's  Propositions  for  the  employing  of  the  Poor,  1678  ; 
Daily  Courant  and  Daily  Journal  of  June  7,  1733 ;  Case  of  Michael 
v.  Allestree,  in  1676,  2  Levinz,  p.  172.  Michael  had  been  run  over 
by  two  horses  which  Allestree  was  breaking  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields. 
The  declaration  set  forth  that  the  defendant  "porta  deux  chivals 
ungovernable  en  un  coach,  et  improvide,  incaute,  et  absque  debita 
consideratione  ineptitudinis  loci  la  eux  drive  per  eux  faire  tractable 
et  apt  pur  un  coach,  quels  chivals,  pur  ceo  que,  per  leur  ferocite,  ne 
poient  estre  rule,  curre  sur  le  plaintiff  et  le  noie." 

t  Stat.  12  Geo.  I.  c.  25 ;  Commons'  Journals,  Feb.  25,  March  2, 
172$ ;  London  Gardener,  1712  ;  Evening  Post,  March  23, 1731.  I  have 
not  been  able  to  find  this  number  of  the  Evening  Post ;  I  therefore 
quote  it  on  the  faith  of  Mr.  Malcolm,  who  mentions  it  in  his  History 
of  London. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  281 

the  groat  body  of  the  population  suffered  what  would  now  be 
considered  as  insupportable  grievances.  The  pavement  was 
detestable ;  all  foreigners  cried  shame  upon  it.  The  drainage 
was  so  bad,  that  in  rainy  weather  the  gutters  soon  became 
torrents.  Several  facetious  poets  have  commemorated  the 
fury  with  which  these  black  rivulets  roared  down  Snow  Hill 
and  Ludgate  Hill,  bearing  to  Fleet  Ditch  a  vast  tribute  of  ani- 
mal and  vegetable  filth  from  the  stalls  of  butchers  and  green 
grocers.  This  flood  was  profusely  thrown  to  right  and  left  by 
coaches  and  carts.  To  keep  as  far  from  the  carriage  road  as 
possible  was  therefore  the  wish  of  every  pedestrian.  The 
mild  and  timid  gave  the  wall.  The  bold  and  athletic  took  it. 
If  two  roisterers  met,  they  cocked  their  hats  in  each  other's 
faces,  and  pushed  each  other  about  till  the  weaker  was  shoved 
towards  the  kennel.  If  he  was  a  mere  bully  he  sneaked  off, 
muttering  that  he  should  find  a  time.  If  he  was  pugnacious, 
the  encounter  probably  ended  in  a  duel  behind  Montague 
House.* 

The  houses  were  not  numbered.  There  would  indeed  have 
been  little  advantage  in  numbering  them  ;  for  of  the  coach- 
men, chairmen,  porters,  and  errand  boys  of  London,  a  very 
small  portion  could  read.  It  was  necessary  to  use  marks 
which  the  most  ignorant  could  understand.  The  shops  were 
therefore  distinguished  by  painted  signs,  which  gave  a  gay 
and  grotesque  aspect  to  the  streets.  The  walk  from  Charing 
Cross  to  Whitechapel  lay  through  an  endless  succession  of 
Saracen's  Heads,  Royal  Oaks,  Blue  Bears,  and  Golden  Lambs, 
which  disappeared  when  they  were  no  longer  required  for  the 
direction  of  the  common  people. 

When  the  evening  closed  in,  the  difficulty  and  danger  of 
walking  about  London  became  serious,  indeed.  The  garret 
windows  were  opened,  and  pails  were  emptied,  with  little 
regard  to  those  who  were  passing  below.  Falls,  bruises,  and 
broken  bones  were  of  constant  occurrence.  For,  till  the  last 
year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  most  of  the  streets 
were  left  in  profound  darkness.  Thieves  and  robbers  plied 
their  trade  with  impunity ;  yet  they  were  hardly  so  terrible 
to  peaceable  citizens  as  another  class  of  ruffians.  It  was  a 
favorite  amusement  of  dissolute  young  gentlemen  to  swagger 

*  Lettres  sur  les  Anglois,  written  early  in  the  reign  of  William 
the  Third;  Swift's  City  Shower;  Gay's  Trivia.  Johnson  used  to 
relate  a  curious  conversation  which  he  had  with  his  mother  about 
giving  and  taking  the  wall. 

24* 


28/J  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

by  night  about  the  town,  breaking  windows,  upsetting  sedans, 
beating  quiet  men  and  offering  rude  caresses  to  pretty  women. 
Several  dynasties  of  these  tyrants  had,  since  the  Restoration, 
domineered  over  the  streets.  The  Muns  and  Tityre  Tus  had 
given  place  to  the  Hectors,  and  the  Hectors  had  been  recently 
succeeded  by  the  Scourers.  At  a  later  period  arose  the 
Nicker,  the  Hawcubite,  and  the  yet  more  dreaded  name  of 
Mohawk.*  The  machinery  for  keeping  the  peace  was  utterly 
contemptible.  There  was  an  act  of  Common  Council  which 
provided  that  more  than  a  thousand  watchmen  should  be 
constantly  on  the  alert  in  the  city,  from  sunset  to  sunrise,  and 
that  every  inhabitant  should  take  his  turn  of  duty.  But  tho 
act  was  negligently  executed.  Few  of  those  who  were  sum- 
moned left  their  homes  ;  and  those  few  generally  found  it  more 
agreeable  to  tipple  in  alehouses  than  to  pace  the  streets.t 

It  ought  to  be  noticed  that,  in  the  last  year  of  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second,  began  a  great  change  in  the  police 
of  London,  a  change  which  has  perhaps  added  as  much  to 
the  happiness  of  the  great  body  of  the  people  as  revolutions 
of  much  greater  fame.  An  ingenious  projector,  named 
Edward  Heming,  obtained  letters  patent  conveying  to  him, 
for  a  term  of  years,  the  exclusive  right  of  lighting  up  London. 
He  undertook,  for  a  moderate  consideration,  to  place  a  light 
before  every  tenth  door,  on  moonless  nights,  from  Michaelmas 
to  Lady  Day,  and  from  six  to  twelve  of  the  clock.  Those 
who  now  see  the  capital  all  the  year  round,  from  dusk  to 
dawn,  blazing  with  a  splendor  compared  with  which  the 
illuminations  for  La  Hogue  and  Blenheim  would  have  looked 
pale,  may  perhaps  smile  to  think  of  Heming's  lanterns,  which 
glimmered  feebly  before  one  house  in  ten  during  a  small 
part  of  one  night  in  three.  But  such  was  not  the  feeling  of  his 

*  Oldham's  Imitation  of  the  3d  Satire  of  Juvenal,  1632 ;  ShadwelTs 
Scourers,  1690.  Many  other  authorities  will  readily  occur  to  all  who 
are  acquainted  with  the  popular  literature  of  that  and  the  succeeding 
generation.  It  may  be  suspected  that  some  of  the  Tityre  Tus,  like 
good  Cavaliers,  broke  Milton's  windows  shortly  after  the  Restoration. 
I  am  confident  that  he  was  thinking  of  those  pests  of  London  when 
he  dictated  the  noble  lines,  — 

44  And  in  luxurious  cities,  when  the  noise 
Of  riot  ascends  above  their  loftiest  towers, 
And  injury  and  outrage,  and  when  night 
Darkens  the  streets,  then  wander  forth  the  aon» 
Of  IJelial,  flown  with  insolence  and  wine." 
t  Seymour's  London. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  283 

contemporaries.  His  scheme  was  enthusiastically  applauded, 
and  furiously  attacked.  The  friends  of  improvement  extolled 
him  as  the  greatest  of  all  the  benefactors  of  his  city.  What, 
they  asked,  were  the  boasted  inventions  of  Archimedes,  when 
compared  with  the  achievement  of  the  man  who  had  turned 
the  nocturnal  shades  into  noonday?  In  spite  of  these  eloquent 
eulogies  the  cause  of  darkness  was  not  left  undefended. 
There  were  fools  in  that  age  who  opposed  the  introduction 
of  what  was  called  the  new  light  as  strenuously  as  fools  in 
our  age"  have  opposed  the  introduction  of  vaccination  and 
railroads,  as  strenuously  as  the  fools  of  an  age  anterior  to  the 
dawn  of  history  doubtless  opposed  the  introduction  of  the 
plough,  and  of  alphabetical  writing.  Many  years  after  the 
date  of  |Heming's  patent  there  were  extensive  districts  in 
which  no  lamp  was  seen.* 

We  may  easily  imagine  what,  in  such  times,  must  have 
been  the  state  of  the  quarters  peopled  by  the  outcasts  of 
society.  Among  those  quarters  one  had  attained  a  scandalous 
preeminence.  On  the  confines  of  the  city  and  the  Temple 
had  been  founded,  in  the  thirteenth  centuiy,  a  House  of  Car- 
melite Friars,  distinguished  by  their  white  hoods.  The  pre- 
cinct of  this  house  had,  before  the  Reformation,  been  a 
sanctuary  for  criminals,  and  still  retained  the  privilege  of 
protecting  debtors  from  arrest.  Insolvents  consequently  were 
to  be  found  in  every  dwelling,  from  cellar  to  garret.  Of 
these  a  large  proportion  wero  knaves  and  libertines,  and  were 
followed  to  their  asylum  by  women  more  abandoned  than 
themselves.  The  civil  power  was  unable  to  keep  order  in  a 
district  swarming  with  such  inhabitants  ;  and  thus  Whitefriars 
became  the  favorite  resort  of  all  who  wished  to  be  emanci- 
pated from  the  restraints  of  the  law.  Though  the  immunities 
legally  belonging  to  the  place  extended  only  to  cases  of  debt, 
cheats,  false  witnesses,  forgers,  and  highwaymen  found  refuge 
there.  For  amidst  a  rabble  so  desperate  no  peace  officer's 
life  was  in  safety.  At  the  cry  of  "  Rescue  "  bullies  with 
swords  and  cudgels,  and  termagant  hags  with  spits  and  broom- 
sticks, poured  forth  by  hundreds ;  and  the  intruder  was 
fortunate  if  he  escaped  back  into  Fleet  Street,  hustled,  stripped, 
and  pumped  upon.  Even  the  warrant  of  the  Chief  Justice 
of  England  could  not  be  executed  without  the  help  of  a 

*  Angliae  Metropolis,  1690,  Sect.  17,  entitled,  "  Of  the  new  lights.' 
Seymour's  London. 


284  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

company  of  musketeers.  Such  relics  of  the  barbarism  of 
the  darkest  ages  were  to  be  found  within  a  short  walk  of  the 
chambers  where  Somers  was  studying  history  and  law,  of 
the  chapel  where  Tillotson  was  preaching,  of  the  coffee- 
house where  Dryden  was  passing  judgment  on  poems  and 
plays,  and  of  the  hall  where  the  Royal  Society  was  examining 
the  astronomical  system  of  Isaac  Newton.* 

Each  of  the  two  cities  which  made  up  the  capital  of  Eng- 
land had  its  own  centre  of  attraction.  In  the  metropolis 
of  commerce  the  point  of  convergence  was  the  Exchange  ; 
in  the  metropolis  of  fashipn  the  Palace.  But  the  Palace 
did  not  retain  its  influence  so  long  as  the  Exchange. 
The  revolution  completely  altered  the  relations  between 
the  court  and  the  higher  classes  of  society.  It  was  by 
degrees  discovered  that  the  king,  in  his  individual  capacity, 
had  very  little  to  give  ;  that  coronets  and  garters,  bishoprics, 
and  embassies,  lordships  of  the  Treasury,  and  tellerships  of 
the  Exchequer,  nay,  even  charges  in  the  royal  stud  and  bed- 
chamber, were  really  bestowed,  not  by  the  king,  but  by  his 
advisers.  Every  ambitious  and  covetous  man  perceived  that 
he  would  consult  his  own  interest  far  better  by  acquiring  the 
dominion  of  a  Cornish  borough,  and  by  rendering  good 
service  to  the  ministry  during  a  critical  session,  than  by 
becoming  the  companion  or  even  the  minion  of  his  prince. 
It  was  therefore  in  the  antechambers,  not  of  George  the 
First  and  of  George  the  Second,  but  of  Walpole  and  of  Pel- 
ham,  that  the  daily  crowd  of  courtiers  was  to  be  found.  It  is 
also  to  be  remarked,  that  the  same  revolution  which  made  it 
impossible  that  our  kings  should  use  the  patronage  of  the 
state,  merely  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying  their  personal 
predilections,  gave  us  several  kings  unfitted  by  their  educa-  . 
tion  and  habits  to  be  gracious  and  affable  hosts.  They  had 
been  born  and  bred  on  the  Continent.  They  never  felt  them- 
selves at  home  in  our  island.  If  they  spoke  our  language 
they  spoke  it  inelegantly  and  with  effort.  Our  national 
character  they  never  fully  understood.  Our  national  manners 
they  hardly  attempted  to  acquire.  The  most  important  part 
of  their  duty  they  performed  better  than  any  ruler  who  had 
preceded  them  ;  for  they  governed  strictly  according  to  law ; 
but  they  could  not  be  the  first  gentlemen  of  the  realm,  the 

*  Stowe's  Survey  of  London ;  Shadwell's  Squire  of  Alsatia ;  Ward's 
London  Spy;  Stat.  8  &  9  GuL  HI.  cap.  27. 


HISTORY    CF    ENGLAND.  2    5 

heads  of  polite  society.  If  ever  they  unbent  it  was  in  a  v-j/y 
small  circle,  where  hardly  an  English  face  was  to  be  seen  ; 
and  they  were  never  so  happy  as  when  they  could  escape  for 
a  summer  to  their  native  land.  They  had  indeed  their  days 
of  reception  for  our  nobility  and  gentry ;  but  the  reception 
was  mere  matter  of  form,  and  became  at  last  as  solemn  a 
ceremony  as  a  funeral. 

Not  such  was  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second.  Whitehall, 
when  he  dwelt  there,  was  the  focus  of  political  intrigue  and 
of  fashionable  gayety.  Half  the  jobbing  and  half  the  flirting 
of  the  metropolis  went  on  under  his  roof.  Whoever  coulc 
make  himself  agreeable  to  the  prince,  or  could  secure  the  good 
offices  of  the  mistress,  might  hope  to  rise  in  the  world  without 
rendering  any  service  to  the  government,  without  being  even 
known  by  sight  to  any  minister  of  state.  This  courtier  got  a 
frigate,  and  that  a  company ;  a  third,  the  pardon  of  a  rich 
offender  ;  a  fourth,  a  lease  of  crown  land  on  easy  terms.  If 
the  king  notified  his  pleasure  that  a  briefless  lawyer  should  be 
made  a  judge,  or  that  a  libertine  baronet  should  be  made  a 
peer,  the  gravest  councillors,  after  a  little  murmuring,  sub- 
mitted.* Interest,  therefore,  drew  a  constant  press  of  suitors 
to  the  gates  of  the  palace,  and  those  gates  always  stood  wide. 
The  king  kept  open  house  every  day,  and  all  day  long,  for  the 
good  society  of  London,  the  extreme  Whigs  only  excepted. 
Hardly  any  gentleman  had  any  difficulty  in  making  his  way  to 
Ihe  royal  presence.  The  levee  was  exactly  what  the  word 
imports.  Some  men  of  quality  came  every  morning  to  stand 
round  their  master,  to  chat  with  him  while  his  wig  was  combed 
and  his  cravat  tied,  and  to  accompany  him  in  his  early  walk 
through  the  park.  All  persons  who  had  been  properly  intro- 
duced might,  without  any  special  invitation,  go  to  see  him 
dine,  sup,  dance,  and  play  at  hazard,  and  might  have  the 
pleasure  of  hearing  him  tell  stories,  which,  indeed,  he  told 
remarkably  well,  about  his  flight  from  Worcester,  and  about 
the  misery  which  he  had  endured  when  he  was  a  state  pris- 
oner in  the  hands  of  the  canting,  rileddling  preachers  of  Scot- 
land. Bystanders  whom  his  majesty  recognized  often  came  in 
for  a  courteous  word.  This  proved  a  far  more,  successful 

*  'See  Sir  Roger  North's  account  of  the  way  in  which  Wright  was 
made  a  judge,  and  Clarendon's  account  of  the  way  in  which  Sir 
George  Savile  was  made  a  peer. 


286  HISTORST  OF  ENGLAND. 

kingcraft  than  any  that  his  father  or  grandfather  had  practised. 
It  was  not  easy  for  the  most  austere  republican  of  the  schoo^ 
of  Marvel  to  resist  the  fascination  of  so  much  good  humor  aud 
affability ;  and  many  a  veteran  Cavalier,  in  whose  heart  the 
remembrance  of  unrequited  sacrifices  and  services  had  been 
festering  during  a  quarter  of  a  century,  was  compensated  in 
one  moment  for  wounds  and  sequestrations  by  his  sovereign's 
cind  npd,  and  "  God  bless  you,  my  old  friend  ! " 

Whitehall  naturally  became  the  chief  staple  of  news. 
Whenever  there  was  a  rumor  that  any  thing  important  had 
happened  or  was  about  to  happen,  people  hastened  thither  to 
obtain  intelligence  from  the  fountain  head.  The  galleries  pre 
sented  the  appearance  of  a  modern  club-room  at  an  anxious 
time.  They  were  full  of  people  inquiring  whether  the  Dutch 
mail  was  in,  what  tidings  the  express  from  France  had  brought, 
whether  John  Sobiesky  had  beaten  the  Turks,  whether  the 
Doge  of  Genoa  was  really  at  Paris.  These  were  matters 
about  which  it  was  safe  to  talk  aloud.  But  there  were  subjects 
concerning  which  information  was  asked  and  given  in  whis- 
pers. Had  Halifax  got  the  better  of  Rochester  ?  Was  there 
to  be  a  parliament  ?  Was  the  Duke  of  York  really  going  to 
Scotland  ?  Had  Monmouth  really  been  sent  for  to  the  Hague  ? 
Men  tried  to  read  the  countenance  of  every  minister  as  he 
went  through  the  throng  to  and  from  the  royal  closet.  All  sorts 
of  auguries  were  drawn  from  the  tone  in  which  his  majesty 
spoke  to  the  Lord  President,  or  from  the  laugh  with  which  his 
majesty  honored  a  jest  of  the  Lord  Privy  Seal ;  and,  in  a  few 
hours,  the  hopes  and  fears  inspired  by  such  slight  indications 
had  spread  to  all  the  coffee-houses  from  St.  James's  to  the 
Tower."  * 

The  coffee-house  must  not  be  dismissed  with  a  cursory  men- 
tion. It  might  indeed,  at  that  time,  have  been  not  improperly 
called  a  most  important  political  institution.  No  parliament 
had  sate  for  years.  The  municipal  council  of  the  city  had 
ceased  to  speak  the  sense  of  the  citizens.  Public  meetings, 
harangues,  resolutions,  and  the  rest  of  the  modern  machinery 
of  agitation,  had  not  yet  come  into  fashion.  Nothing  resem- 

*  The  sources  from  which  I  have  drawn  my  information  about  the 
state  of  the  court  are  too  numerous  to  recapitulate.  Among  them  are 
the  Despatches  of  Barillon,  Citters,  Konquillo,  and  Adda,  the  Travels 
of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo,  the  Diaries  of  Pepys,  Evelyn,  and  Teonge, 
and  the  Memoirs  of  Grammont  and  Reresby. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  287 

Wing  the  modern  newspaper  existed.  In  such  circumstances, 
the  coffee-houses  were  the  chief  organs  through  which  the 
public  opinion  of  the  metropolis  vented  itself. 

The  first  of  these  establishments  had  been  set  up,  in  the 
time  of  the  Commonwealth,  by  a  Turkey  merchant,  who  had 
acquired  among  the  Mahometans  a  taste  for  their  favorite  bev- 
erage. The  convenience  of  being  able  to  make  appointments 
in  any  part  of  the  town,  and  of  being  able  to  pass  evenings 
socially  at  a  very  small  charge,  was  so  great,  that  the  fashion 
spread  fast.  Every  man  of  the  upper  or  middle  class  went 
daily  to  his  coffee-house  to  learn  the  news  and  to  discuss  it. 
Every  coffee-house  had  one  or  more  orators  to  whose  elo- 
quence the  crowd  listened  with  admiration,  and  who  soon 
became,  what  the  journalists  of  our  own  time  have  been  called, 
a  fourth  estate  of  the  realm.  The  court  had  long  seen  with 
uneasiness  the  growth  of  this  new  power  in  the  state.  An 
attempt  had  been  made,  during  Danby's  administration,  to 
close  the  coffee-houses.  But  men  of  all  parties  missed  their 
usual  places  of  resort  so  much  that  there  was  a  universal 
outcry.  The  government  did  not  venture,  in  opposition  to  a 
feeling  so  strong  and  general,  to  enforce  a  regulation  of  which 
the  legality  might  well  be  questioned.  Since  that  time,  ten 
years  had  elapsed,  and,  during  those  years,  the  number  and 
influence  of  the  coffee-houses  had  been  constantly  increasing. 
Foreigners  remarked  that  the  coffee-house  was  that  which 
especially  distinguished  London  from  all  other  cities  ;  that  the 
coffee-house  was  the  Londoner's  home,  and  that  those  who 
wished  to  find  a  gentleman  commonly  asked,  not  whether  he 
lived  in  Fleet  Street  or  Chancery  Lane,  but  whether  he  fre- 
quented the  Grecian  or  the  Rainbow.  Nobody  was  excluded 
from  these  places  who  laid  down  his  penny  at  the  bar.  Yet 
every  rank  and  profession,  and  every  shade  of  religious  and 
political  opinion,  had  its  own  head-quarters.  There  were 
houses  near  St.  James's  Park  where  fops  congregated,  their 
heads  and  shoulders  covered  with  black  or  flaxen  wigs,  not 
less  ample  than  those  which  are  now  worn  by  the  chancellor 
and  by  the  speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  wig  came 
from  Paris ;  and  so  did  the  rest  of  the  fine  gentleman's  orna- 
ments, his  embroidered  coat,  his  fringed  gloves,  and  the  tassel 
which  upheld  his  pantaloons.  The  conversation  was  in  that 
dialect  which,  long  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  spoken  in  fash- 
ionable circles,  continued,  in  the  mouth  of  Lord  Foppington, 


HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND. 

to  excite  the  mirth  of  theatres.*  The  atmosphere  was  like 
that  of  a  perfumer's  shop.  Tobacco  in  any  other  form  than 
that  of  richly  scented  snuff  was  held  in  abomination.  If  any 
clown,  ignorant  of  the  usages  of  the  house,  called  for  a  pipe, 
the  sneers  of  the  whole  assembly  and  the  short  answers  of  the 
waiters  soon  convinced  him  that  he  had  better  go  somewhere 
else.  Nor,  indeed,  would  he  have  had  far  to  go.  For,  in 
general,  the  coffee-rooms  reeked  with  tobacco  like  a  guard 
room  ;  and  strangers  sometimes  expressed  their  surprise  that 
so  many  people  should  leave  their  own  firesides  to  sit  in  the 
midst  of  eternal  fog  and  stench.  Nowhere  was  the  smoking 
more  constant  than  at  Will's.  That  celebrated  house,  situated 
between  Covent  Garden  and  Bow  Street,  was  sacred  to  polite 
letters.  There  the  talk  was  about  poetical  justice  and  the 
unities  of  place  and  time.  There  was  a  faction  for  Perrault 
and  the  moderns,  a  faction  for  Boileaujand  the  ancients.  One 
group  debated  whether  Paradise  Lost  "ought  not  to  have  been 
in  rhyme.  To  another  an  envious  poetaster  demonstrated  that 
Venice  Preserved  ought  to  have. been  hooted  from  the  stage. 
Under  no  roof  was  a  greater  variety  of  figures  to  be  seen,  — 
earls  in  stars  and  garters,  clergymen  in  cassocks  and  bands, 
pert  templars,  sheepish  lads  from  the  universities,  translators 
and  index  makers  in  ragged  coats  of  frieze.  The  great  press 
was  to'  get  near  the  chair  where  John  Dryden  sate.  In  winter, 
that  chair  was  always  in  the  warmest  nook  by  the  fire ;  in 
summer,  it  stood  in  the  balcony.  To  bow  to  him,  and  to  hear 
his  opinion  of  Racine's  last  tragedy  or  of  Bossu's  treatise  on 
epic  poetry,  was  thought  a  privilege.  A  pinch  from  his  snuff- 
box was  an  honor  sufficient  to  turn  the  head  of  a  young  en- 
thusiast. There  were  coffee-houses  where  the  first  medical 
men  might  be  consulted.  Doctor  John  Radcliffe,  who,  in  the 
year  1685,  rose  to  the  largest  practice  in  London,  came  daily, 
at  the  hour  when  the  Exchange  was  full,  from  his  house  r  in 
Bow  Street,  then  a  fashionable  part  of  the  capital,  to  Garra- 
way's,  and  was  to  be  found  surrounded  by  surgeons  and 
apothecaries,  at  a  particular  table.  There  were  Puritan  coffee- 

*  The  chief  peculiarity  of  this  dialect  was  that,  in  a  large  class  of 
words,  the  O  was  pronounced  like  A.  Thus  stork  was  pronounced 
Btnrk.  See  Vanbrugh's  Relapse.  .  Lord  Sunderland  was  a  great 
master  of  this  court  tune,  as  Roger  North  calls  it;  and  Titus  Gates 
affected  it  in  the  hope  of  passing  for  a  fine  gentleman.  Examen,  77, 
254. 


HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND.  289 

houses  where  no  oath  was  heard,  and  where  lankhaired  men 
discussed  election  and  reprobation  through  their  noses ;  Jew 
coffee-houses  where  dark-eyed  money-changers  from  Venice 
and  from  Amsterdam  greeted  each  other ;  and  Popish  coffee- 
houses where,  as  good  Protestants  believed,  Jesuits  planned, 
over  their  cups,  another  great  fire,  and  cast  silver  bullets  to 
shoot  the  king.* 

These  gregarious  habits  had  no  small  share  in  forming  the 
character  of  the  Londoner  of  that  age.  He  was,  indeed,  a 
different  being  from  the  rustic  Englishman.  There  was  not 
then  the  intercourse  which  now  exists  between  the  two  classes. 
Only  very  great  men  were  in  the  habit  of  dividing  the  year 
between  town  and  country.  Few  esquires  came  to  the  capital 
thrice  in  their  lives.  Nor  was  it  yet  the  practice  of  all  citi- 
zens in  easy  circumstances  to  breathe  the  fresh  air  of  the 
fields  and  woods  during  some  weeks  of  every  summer.  A 
cockney,  in  a  rural  village,  was  stared  at  as  much  as  if  he 
had  intruded  into  a  Kraal  of  Hottentots.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  the  lord  of  a  Lincolnshire  or  Shropshire  manor  appeared 
in  Fleet  Street,  he  was  as  easily  distinguished  from  the  resi- 
dent population  as  a  Turk  or  a  Lascar.  His  dress,  his  gait, 
his  accent,  the  manner  in  which  he  stared  at  the  shops,  stum 
bled  into  the  gutters,  ran  against  the  porters,  and  stood  unde* 
the  waterspouts,  marked  him  out  as  an  excellent  subject  foi 
the  operations  of  swindlers  and  banterers.  Bullies  jostled 
him  into  the  kennel.  Hackney  coachmen  splashed  him  from 
head  to  foot.  Thieves  explored  with  perfect  security  the  huge 
pockets  of  his  horseman's  coat,  while  he  stood  entranced  by 
the  splendor  of  the  Lord  Mayor's  show.  Money-droppers, 
sore  from  the  cart's  tail,  introduced  themselves  to  him,  and 
appeared  to  him  the  most  honest,  friendly  gentlemen  that  he 
had  ever  seen.  Painted  women,  the  refuse  of  Lewkner  Lane 
and  Whetstone  Park,  passed  themselves  on  him  for  countesses 
and  maids  of  honor.  If  he  asked  his  way  to  St.  James's,  his 

*  Lettres  sur  lea  Anglois;  Tom  Brown's  Tour;  Ward's  London 
Spy ;  The  Character  of  a  Coffee-House,  1673 ;  Rules  and  Orders 
of  the  Coffee-House,  1674  ;  Coffee-Houses  vindicated,  1675  ;  A 
Satyr  against  Coffee;  North's  Examen,  138;  Life  of  Guildford,  152; 
Life  of  Sir  Dudley  North,  149 ;  Life  of  Dr.  Radcliffe,  published  by 
Curll  in  1715.  The  liveliest  description  of  Will's  is  in  the  City'  and 
Country  Mouse.  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  about  the  influence 
of  the  coffee-house  orators  in  Halstead's  Succinct  Genealogies,  printed 
in  1685. 

VOL.  I.  25 


290  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

informants  sent  him  to  Mile  End.  If  he  went  into  a  shop,  he 
was  instantly  discerned  to  be  a  fit  purchaser  of  every  thing 
that  nobody  else  would  buy,  of  second-hand  embroidery,  cop- 
per rings,  and  watches  that  would  not  go.  If  he  rambled  into 
any  fashionable  coffee-house,  he  became  a  mark  for  the  inso- 
lent derision  of  fops  and  the  grave  waggery  of  templars. 
Enraged  and  mortified,  he  soon  returned  to  his  mansion,  and 
there,  in  the  homage  of  his  tenants,  and  the  conversation  of 
his  boon  companions,  found  consolation  for  the  vexations  and 
humiliations  which  he  had  undergone.  There  he  once  more 
felt  himself  a  great  man  ;  and  he  saw  nothing  above  him  ex- 
cept when  at  the  assizes  he  took  his  seat  on  the  bench  near 
the  judge,  or  when  at  the  muster  of  the  militia  he  saluted  the 
lord  lieutenant. 

The  chief  cause  which  made  the  fusion  of  the  different 
Clements  of  society  so  imperfect  was  the  extreme  difficulty 
which  our  ancestors  found  in  passing  from  place  to  place. 
Of  all  inventions,  the  alphabet  and  the  printing  press  alone 
oxcepted,  those  inventions  which  abridge  distance  have  done 
most  for  the  civilization  of  our  species.  Every  improvement 
of  the  means  of  locomotion  benefits  mankind  morally  and  in- 
tellectually as  well  as  materially,  and  not  only  facilitates  the 
interchange  of  the  various  productions  of  nature  and  art,  but 
tends  to  remove  national  and  provincial  antipathies,  and  to 
bind  together  all  the  branches  of  the  great  human  family. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  the  inhabitants  of  London  were, 
for  almost  every  practical  purpose,  further  from  Reading  than 
they  now  are  from  Edinburgh,  and  further  from  Edinburgh 
than  they  now  are  from  Vienna. 

The  subjects  of  Charles  the  Second  were  not,  it  is  true, 
quite  unacquainted  with  that  principle  which  has,  in  our  own 
time,  produced  an  unprecedented  revolution  in  human  affairs, 
which  has  enabled  navies  to  advance  in  the  face  of  wind  and 
tide,  and  battalions,  attended  by  all  their  baggage  and  artillery, 
to  traverse  kingdoms  at  a  pace  equal  to  that  of  the  fleetest 
race  horse.  The  Marquess  of  Worcester  had  recently  ob- 
served the  expansive  power  of  moisture  rarefied  by  heat. 
After  many  experiments  he  had  succeeded  in  constructing  a 
rude  steam  engine,  which  he  called  a  fire  water  work,  and 
which  he  pronounced  to  be  an  admirable  and  most  forcible 
instrument  of  propulsion.*  But  the  marquess  was  suspected 

*  Century  of  Inventions,  1663.    No.  68. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  291 

10  be  a  madman,  and  known  to  be  a  Papist.  His  inventions, 
therefore,  found  no  favorable  reception.  His  fhe  water  work 
might,  perhaps,  furnish  matter  for  conversation  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Royal  Society,  but  was  not  applied  to  any  practical 
purpose.  There  were  no  railways,  except  a  few  made  of 
timber,  from  the  mouths  of  the  Northumbrian  coal  pits  to  the 
banks  of  the  Tyne.*  There  was  very  little  internal  commu- 
nication by  water.  A  few  attempts  had  been  made  to  deepen 
and  embank  the  natural  streams,  but  with  slender  success. 
Hardly  a  single  navigable  canal  had  been  even  projected.  The 
English  of  that  day  were  in  the  habit  of  talking  with  mingled 
admiration  and  despair  of  the  immense  trench  by  which 
Lewis  the  Fourteenth  had  made  a  junction  between  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Mediterranean.  They  little  thought  that  their  country 
would,  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations,  be  intersected,  at 
the  cost  of  private  adventurers,  by  artificial  rivers  making  up 
more  than  four  times  the  length  of  the  Thames,  the  Severn, 
and  the  Trent  together. 

It  was  by  the  highways  that  both  travellers  and  goods  gen- 
erally passed  from  place  to  place.  And  those  highways  ap- 
pear to  have  been  far  worse  than  might  have  been  expected 
from  the  degree  of  wealth  and  civilization  which  the  nation 
had  even  then  attained.  On  the  best  lines  of  communication 
the  ruts  were  deep,  the  descents  precipitous,  and  the  way 
often  such  as  it  was  hardly  possible  to  distinguish,  in  the  dusk, 
from  the  unenclosed  heath  and  fen  which  lay  on  both  sides. 
Ralph  Thoresby,  the  antiquary,  was  in  danger  of  losing  his 
way  on  the  great  North  road,  between  Barnby  Moor  and  Tux- 
ford,  and  actually  lost  it  between  Doncaster  and  York.t  Pepys 
arid  his  wife,  travelling  in  their  own  coach,  lost  their  way  be- 
tween Newbury  and  Reading.  In  the  course  of  the  same  tour 
they  lost  their  way  near  Salisbury,  and  were  in  danger  of  having 
to  pass  the  night  on  the  plain-!  ^  was  onty  m  &ne  weather  that 
the  whole  breadth  of  the  road  was  available  for  wheeled  vehicles. 
Often  the  mud  lay  deep  on  the  right  and  the  left ;  and  only  a 
narrow  track  of  firm  ground  rose  above  the  quagmire.^  At  such 
times  obstructions  and  quarrels  were  frequent,  and  the  path  was 
sometimes  blocked  up  during  a  long  time  by  carriers,  neither 
af  whom  would  break  the  way.  It  happened,  almost  every  day, 

*  North's  Life  of  Guilford,  136. 

f  Thoresby's  Diary,  Oct.  21,  1680,  Aug.  3,  1712. 

j  Pepys's  Diary,  June  12  and  16,  1668. 

6  Ibid.  Feb.  28,  1660. 


292  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

that  coaches  stuck  fast,  until  a  team  of  cattle  could  be  procured 
from  some  neighboring  farm  to  tug  them  out  of  the  slough. 
But  in  bad  seasons  the  traveller  had  to  encounter  inconve- 
niences still  more  serious.  Thoresby,  who  was  in  the  habit  of 
travelling  between  Leeds  and  the  capital,  has  recorded,  in  his 
Diary,  such  a  series  of  perils  and  disasters  as  might  suffice 
for  a  journey  to  the  Frozen  Ocean  or  to  the  Desert  of  Sahara. 
On  one  occasion  he  learned  that  the  floods  were  out  between 
Ware  and  London,  that  passengers  had  to  swim  for  their  lives, 
and  that  a  higgler  had  perished  in  the  attempt  to  cross.  In 
consequence  of  these  tidings  he  turned  out  of  the  high  road, 
and  was  conducted  across  some  meadows,  where  it  was  neces- 
sary for  him  to  ride  to  the  saddle  skirts  in  water.*  In  the 
course  of  another  journey  be  narrowly  escaped  being  swept 
away  by  an  inundation  of  the  Trent.  He  was  afterwards  de- 
tained at  Stamford  four  days,  on  account  of  the  state  of  the 
roads,  and  then  ventured  to  proceed  only  because  fourteen 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  who  were  going  up  in  a 
body  to  parliament,  with  guides  and  numerous  attendants,  took 
him  into  their  company .t  On  the  roads  of  Derbyshire  trav- 
ellers were  in  constant  fear  for  their  necks,  and  were  fre- 
quently compelled  to  alight  and  lead  their  beasts.J  The  great 
route  through  Wales  to  Holyhead  was  in  such  a  state  that,  in 
1685,  a  viceroy,  on  his  road  to  Ireland,  was  five  hours  in 
travelling  fourteen  miles,  from  Saint  Asaph  to  Conway.  Be- 
tween Conway  and  Beaumaris  he  was  forced  to  walk  great 
part  of  the  way ;  and  his  lady  was  carried  in  a  litter.  His 
coach  was,  with  great  difficulty,  and  by  the  help  of  many 
hands,  brought  after  him  entire.  In  general,  carriages  were 
taken  to  pieces  at  Conway,  and  borne,  on  the  shoulders  of 
stout  Welsh  peasants,  to  the  Menai  Straits.^  In  some  parts 
of  Kent  and  Sussex  none  but  the  strongest  horses  could,  in 
winter,  get  through  the  bog,  in  which,  at  every  step,  they  sank 
deep.  The  markets  were  often  inaccessible  during  several 
months.  It  is  said  that  the  fruits  of  the  earth  were  sometimes 
suffered  to  rot  in  one  place,  while  in  another  place,  distan* 
only  a  few  miles,  the  supply  fell  far  short  of  the  demand. 

•  Thoresby's  Diary,  May  17,  1695. 

t  Idem,  Dec.  27,  1708. 

.  I  Tour  in  Derbyshire,  by  J.  Browne,  son  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
1662.  Cotton's  Angler,  1676. 

§  Correspondence  of  Henry  Earl  of  Clarendon,  Dec.   30,    1685, 
Jan.  1,  1686. 


HI4TORY    OP    ^!<CLANr.  293 

The  wheeled  carriages  were,  in  this  district,  generally  pulled 
by  oxen.*  When  Prince  George  of  Denmark  visited  the 
stately  mansion  of  Petworth  in  wet  weather,  he  was  six  hours 
in  going  nine  miles ;  and  it  was  necessary  that  a  body  of 
sturdy  hinds  should  be  on  each  side  of  his  coach,  in  order  to 
prop  it.  Of  the  carriages  which  conveyed  his  retinue  several 
were  upset  and  injured.  A  letter  from  one  of  his  gentlemen 
in  waiting  has  been  preserved,  in  which  the  unfortunate  cour- 
tier complains  that,  during  fourteen  hours,  he  never  once 
alighted,  except  when  his  coach  was  overturned  or  stuck  fast 
'n  the  mud.t 

One  chief  cause  of  the  badness  of  the  roads  seems  to  have 
been  the  defective  state  of  the  law.  Every  parish  was  bound 
to  repair  the  highways  which  passed  through  it.  The  peas- 
antry were  forced  to  give  their  gratuitous  labor  six  days  in  the 
year.  If  this  was  not  sufficient  hired  labor  was  employed,  and 
the  expense  was  met  by  a  parochial  rate.  That  a  route  con 
fleeting  two  great  towns,  which  have  a  large  and  thriving  trade 
with  each  other,  should  be  maintained  at  the  cost  of  the  rural 
population  scattered  between  them  is  obviously  unjust ;  and 
this  injustice  was  peculiarly  glaring  in  the  case  of  the  great 
North  Road,  which  traversed  very  poor  and  thinly  inhabited 
districts,  and  joined  very  rich  and  populous  districts.  Indeed 
it  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  parishes  of  Huntingdonshire  to 
mend  a  highway  worn  by  the  constant  passing  and  repassing 
of  traffic  between  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire  and  London. 
Soon  after  the  Restoration  this  grievance  attracted  the  notice 
of  parliament ;  and  an  act,  the  first  of  our  many  turnpike  acts, 
was  passed,  imposing  a  small  toll  on  travellers  and  goods,  for 
the  purpose  of  keeping  some  parts  of  this  important  line  of 
communication  in  good  repair.^  This  innovation,  however, 
excited  many  murmurs  ;  and  the  other  great  avenues  to  the 
capital  were  long  left  under  the  old  system.  A  change  was 
at  length  effected,  but  not  without  great  difficulty.  For  unjust 
and  absurd  taxation  to  which  men  are  accustomed  is  often 
borne  far  more  willingly  than  the  most  reasonable  impost 
which  is  new.  It  was  not  till  many  toll  bars  had  been  vio- 
lently pulled  down,  till  the  troops  had  in  many  districts  been 


*  Postlethwaite's  Dictionary,  Roads.     History  of  Ilawkhurst,  in 
the  Bibliotheca  Topographica  Britannica. 

t  Annals  of  Queen  Anne,  1703,  Appendix,  No.  3. 
J  15  Car.  II.  c.  1. 

25* 


294  HISTORY  or  ENGLAND. 

forced  to  act  against  the  people^  and  till  much  blood  had  been 
shed,  that  a  good  system  was  introduced.*  By  slow  degrees 
reason  triumphed  over  prejudice ;  and  our  island  is  now 
crossed  in  every  direction  by  near  thirty  thousand  miles  of 
turnpike  road. 

On  the  best  highways  heavy  articles  were,  in  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Second,  generally  conveyed  from  place  to  place 
by  stage  wagons.  In  the  straw  of  these  vehicles  nestled  a 
crowd  of  passengers,  who  could  not  afford  to  travel  by  coach 
or  on  horseback,  and  who  were  prevented  by  infirmity,  or  by 
the  weight  of  their  luggage,  from  going  on  foot.  The  expense 
of  transmitting  heavy  goods  in  this  way  was  enormous.  From 
London  to  Birmingham  the  charge  was  seven  pounds  a  ton ; 
from  London  to  Exeter  twelve  pounds  a  ton.t  This  was  about 
fifteen  pence  a  ton  for  every  mile,  more  by  a  third  than  was  after- 
wards charged  on  turnpike  roads,  and  fifteen  times  what  is  now 
demanded  by  railway  companies.  The  cost  of  conveyance 
amounted  to  a  prohibitory  tax  on  many  useful  articles.  Coal 
in  particular  was  never  seen  except  in  the  districts  where  it  was 
produced,  or  in  the  districts  to  which  it  could  be  carried  by 
sea,  and  was  indeed  always  known  in  the  south  of  England  by 
the  name  of  sea  coal. 

On  byroads,  and  generally  throughout  the  country  north  of 
York  and  west  of  Exeter,  goods  were  carried  by  long  trains 
of  pack-horses.  These  strong  and  patient  beasts,  the  breed  of 
which  is  now  extinct,  were  attended  by  a  class  of  men  who 
seem  to  have  borne  much  resemblance  to  the  Spanish  mule- 
teers. A  traveller  of  humble  condition  often  found  it  conve 
nient  to  perform  a  journey  mounted  on  a  pack-saddle  between 
two  baskets,  under  the  care  of  these  hardy  guides.  The  ex- 
pense of  this  mode  of  conveyance  was  small.  But  the  cara- 
van moved  at  a  foot's  pace  ;  and  in  winter  the  cold  was  often 
insupportable.^ 

The  rich  commonly  travelled  in  their  own  carriages,  with 
at  least  four  horses.  Cotton,  the  facetious  poet,  attempted  to 

*  The  evils  of  the  old  system  are  strikingly  set  forth  in  many 
petitions  which  appear  in  the  Commons'  Journal  of  172&.  How 
fierce  an  opposition  was  offered  to  the  new  system  may  be  learned 
from  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  of  1749. 

t  Postlethwaite's  Dictionary,  Roads. 

J  Loidis  and  Elmete.  Marshall's  Rural  Economy  of  England.  In 
1739  Roderic  Random  came  from  Scotland  to  Newcastle  on  a  pack- 
none. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  295 

go  from  London  to  the  Peak  with  a  single  pair,  but  found  at 
St.  Alban's  that  the  journey  would  be  insupportably  tedious, 
and  altered  his  plan.*  A  coach  and  six  is  in  our  time  never 
seen,  except  assart  of  some  pageant.  The  frequent  mention 
therefore  of  such  equipages  in  old  books  is  likely  to  mislead 
us.  We  attribute  to  magnificence  what  was  really  the  effect 
of  a  very  disagreeable  necessity.  People,  in  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Second-,  travelled  with  six  horses,  because  with  a 
smaller  number  there  was  great  danger  of  sticking  fast  in  the 
mire.  Nor  were  even  six  horses  always  sufficient.  Vanbrugh, 
in  the  succeeding  generation,  described  with  great  humor  the 
way  in  which  a  country  gentleman,  newly  chosen  a  member 
of  parliament,  went  up  to  London.  On  that  occasion  all  the 
exertions  of  six  beasts,  two  of  which  had  been  taken  from  the 
plough,  could  not  save  the  family  coach  from  being  imbedded 
in  a  quagmire. 

Public  carriages  had  recently  been  much  improved.  During 
the  years  which  immediately  followed  the  Restoration,  a  dili- 
gence ran  between  London  and  Oxford  in  two  days.  The 
passengers  slept  at  Beaconsfield.  At  length,  in  the  spring  of 
1669,  a  great  and  daring  innovation  was  attempted.  It  was 
announced  that  a  vehicle,  described  as  the  Flying  Coach,  would 
perform  the  whole  journey  between  sunrise  and  sunset.  This 
spirited  undertaking  was  solemnly  considered  and  sanctioned 
by  the  Heads  of  the  University,  and  appears  to  have  excited 
the  same  sort  of  interest  which  is  excited  in  our  own  time  by 
the  opening  of  a  new  railway.  The  Vice-Chancellor,  by  a  notice 
which  was  affixed  in  all  public  places,  prescribed  the  hour  and 
place  of  departure.  The  success  of  the  experiment  was  com- 
plete. At  six  in  the  morning  the  carriage  began  to  move 
from  before  the  ancient  front  of  All  Souls'  College  :  and  at 
seven  in  the  evening  the  adventurous  gentlemen  who  had  run  the 
first  risk  were  safely  deposited  at  their  inn  in  London.f  The 
emulation  of  the  sister  university  was  moved  ;  and  soon  a  dili- 
gence was  set  up  which  in  one-  day  carried  passengers  from 
Cambridge  to  the  capital.  At  the  close  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  flying  carriages  ran  thrice  a  week  from 
London  to  all  the  chief  towns.  But  no  stage  coach,  indeed  no 
stage  wagon,  appears  to  have  proceeded  farther  north  than 
York,  or  farther  west  than  Exeter.  The  ordinary  day^s  jour- 

*  Cotton's  Epistle  to  John  Bradshaw. 
t  Anthony  a  Wood's  Life  of  himself. 


296  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ney  of  a  flying  coach  was  about  fifty  miles  in  the  summer, 
but  in  winter,  when  the  ways  were  bad  and  the  nights  long, 
little  more  than  thirty.  The  Chester  coach,  the  York  coach, 
and  the  Exetnr  coach  generally  reached  London  in  four  days 
during  the  fine  season,  but  at  Christmas  not  till  the  sixth  day. 
The  passengers,  six  in  number,  were  all  seated  in  the  carriage. 
For  accidents  were  so  frequent- that  it  would  have  been  most 
peri  lous  to  mount  the  roof.  The  ordinary  fare  was  about  two- 
pence halfpenny  a  mile  in  summer,  and  somewhat  more  in 
winter.* 

This  mode  of  travelling,  which  by  Englishmen  of  the 
present  day  would  be  regarded  as  insufferably  slow,  seemed 
to  our  ancestoi-s  wonderfully  and  indeed  alarmingly  rapid. 
In  a  work  published  a  few  months  before  the  death  of  Charles 
the  Second,  the  flying  coaches  are  extolled  as  far  superior  to 
any  similar  vehicles  ever  known  in  the  world.  Their  velocity 
is  the  subject  of  special  commendation,  and  is  triumphantly 
contrasted  with  the  sluggish  pace  of  the  continental  posts. 
But  with  boasts  like  these  was  mingled  the  sound  of  complaint 
and  invective.  The  interests  of  large  classes  had  been  un- 
favorably affected  by  the  establishment  of  the  new  diligences ; 
and,  as  usual,  many  persons  were,  from  mere  stupidity  and 
obstinacy,  disposed  to  clamor  against  the  innovation,  simply 
because  it  was  an  innovation.  It  was  vehemently  argued 
that  this  mode  of  conveyance  would  be  fatal  to  the  breed 
of  horses  and  to  the  noble  art  of  horsemanship  ;  that  the 
Thames,  which  had  long  been  an  important  nursery  of  sea- 
men, would  cease  to  be  the  chief  thoroughfare  from  London 
up  to  Windsor  and  down  to  Gravesend ;  that  saddlers  and 
spurriers  would  be  ruined  by  hundreds  ;  that  numerous  inns, 
at  which  mounted  travellers  had  been  in  the  habit  of  stopping, 
would  be  deserted,  and  would  no  longer  pay  any  rent ;  that 
the  new  carriages  were  too  hot  in  summer  and  too  cold  in 
winter ;  that  the  passengers  were  grievously  annoyed  by 
invalids  and  crying  children  ;  that  the  coach  sometimes 
reached  the  inn  so  late  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  supper, 
and  sometimes  started  so  early  that  it  was  impossible  to  get 
breakfast.  On  these  grounds  it  was  gravely  recommended 
that  no  public  carriage  should  be  permitted  to  have  more 
• 

*  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684.  See  also  the  list  of 
stage  coaches  and  wagons  at  the  end  of  the  book,  entitled  Angliw 
Metropolis,  1690. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

than  four  horses,  to  start  oftener  than  once  a  week,  or  to  go 
more  than  thirty  miles  a  day.  It  was  hoped  that,  if  this  reg- 
ulation were  adopted,  all  except  the  sick  and  the  lame  would 
return  to  the  old  modes  of  travelling.  Petitions  embodying 
such  opinions  as  these  were  presented  to  the  king  in  council 
from  several  companies  of  the  city  of  London,  from  several 
provincial  towns,  and  from  the  justices  of  several  counties. 
We  smile  at  these  things.  It  is  not  impossible  that  our 
descendants,  when  they  read  the  history  of  the  opposition 
offered  by  cupidity  and  prejudice  to  the  improvements  of* 
the  nineteenth  century,  may  smile  in  their  turn.* 

In  spite  of  the  attractions  of  the  flying  coaches,  it  was  still 
usual  for  men  who  enjoyed  health  and  vigor,  and  who  were 
not  encumbered  by  much  baggage,  to  perform  long  journeys 
on  horseback.  If  the  traveller  wished  to  move  expeditiously 
he  rode  post.  Fresh  saddle  horses  and  guides  were  to  be 
procured  at  convenient  distances  along  all  the  great  lines  of 
road.  The  charge  was  threepence  a  mile  for  each  horse 
and  fourpence  a  stage  for  the  guide.  In  this  manner,  when 
the  ways  were  good,  it  was  possible  to  travel,  for  a  con- 
siderable time,  as  rapidly  as  by  any  conveyance  known  in 
England,  till  vehicles  were  propelled  by  steam.  There  were 
as  yet  no  post  chaises ;  nor  could  those  who  rode  in  their 
own  coaches  ordinarily  procure  a  change  of  horses.  The 
king,  however,  and  the  great  officers  of  state  were  able  to 
command  relays.  Thus  Charles  commonly  went  m  one  day 
from  Whitehall  to  Newmarket,  a  distance  of  about  fifty-fiv^. 
miles  through  a  level  country ;  and  this  was  thought  by  his 
subjects  a  proof  of  great  activity.  Evelyn  performed  the 
same  journey  in  company  with  Lord  Treasurer  Clifford.  The 
coach  was  drawn  by  six  horses,  which  were  changed  at 
Bishop  Stortford  and  again  at  Chesterford.  The  travellers 
reached  Newmarket  by  night.  Such  a  mode  of  conveyance 
seems  to  have  been  considered  as  a  rare  luxury  confined  to 
princes  and  ministers,  t 

Whatever  might  be  the  way  in  which  a  journey  was  per- 
formed, the  travellers,  unless  they  were  numerous  and  well 

*  John  Cresset's  Reasons  for  suppressing  Stage  Coaches,  1672. 
These  reasons  were  afterwards  inserted  in  a  tract,  entitled  "The 
Grand  Concern  of  England  explained,  1673."  Cresset's  attack  on 
stage  coaches  called  forth  some  answers  -which  I  have  consulted. 

t  Chmnberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684  ;  North's  Examen,  105 ; 
Evelyn's,  Diary,  Oct.  9,  10,  1671. 
or,* 


298  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

armed,  ran  considerable  risk  of  being  stopped  and  plundered. 
The  mounted  highwayman,  a  marauder  known  to  our  gen- 
eration only  from  books,  was  to  be  found  on  every  main 
road.  The  waste  tracts  which  lay  on  the  great  routes  near 
London  were  especially  haunted  by  plunderers  of  this  class. 
Hounslow  Heath,  on  the  great  Western  road,  and  Finchley 
Common,  on  the  great  Northern  road,  were  perhaps  the  most 
celebrated  of  these  spots.  The  Cambridge  scholars  trembled 
when  they  approached  Epping  Forest,  even  in  broad  day- 
light. Seamen  who  had  j«st  been  paid  off  at  Chatham  were 
often  compelled  to  deliver  their  purses  on  Gadshill,  celebrated 
near  a  hundred  years  earlier  by  the  greatest  of  poets  as  the 
scene  of  the  depredations  of  Poins  and  Falstaff.  The  public 
authorities  seem  to  have  been  often  at  a  loss  how  to  deal  with 
these  enterprising  plunderers.  At  one  time  it  was  announced 
in  the  Gazette  that  several  persons,  who  were  strongly  sus- 
pected of  being  highwaymen,  but  against  whom  there  was 
not  sufficient  evidence,  would  be  paraded  at  Newgate  in  riding 
dresses ;  their  horses  would  also  be  shown ;  and  all  gentlemen 
who  had  been  robbed  were  invited  to  inspect  this  singular 
exhibition.  On  another  occasion  a  pardon  was  publicly 
offered  to  a  robber  if  he  would  give  up  some  rough  diamonds, 
of  immense  value,  which  he  had  taken  when  he  stopped  the 
Harwich  mail.  A  short  time  after  appeared  another  proc- 
lamation, warning  the  innkeepers  that  the  eye  of  the  govern- 
ment was*  upon  them.  Their  criminal  connivance,  it  was 
affirmed,  enabled  banditti  to  infest  the  roads  with  impunity. 
That  these  suspicions  were  not  without  foundation,  is  proved 
by  the  dying  speeches  of  some  penitent  robbers  of  that  age, 
who  appear  to  have  received  from  the  innkeepers  services 
much  resembling  those  which  Farquhar's  Boniface  rendered 
to  Gibbet.*  > 

It  was  necessary  to  the  success  and  even  to  the  safety 
of  the  highwayman  that  he  should  be  a  bold  and  skilful  rider, 
and  that  his  manners  and  appearance  should  be  such  as  suited 
the  master  of  a  fine  horse.  He  therefore  held  an  aristocratical 
position  in  the  community  of  thieves,  appeared  at  fashionable 
coffee-houses  and  gaming-houses,  and  betted  with  men  of 

*  See  the  London  Gazette,  May  14,  1677,  August  4,  1687,  Dec. 
6,  1687.  The  last  confession  of  Augustin  King,  who  was  the  son  of 
an  eminent  divine,  and  had  been  educated  at  Cambridge,  but  was 
hanged  at  Colchester  in  March,  1688,  is  highly  curious. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  299 

quality  on  the  race-ground.*  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  was  a 
man  of  good  family  and  education.  A  romantic  interest 
therefore  attached,  and  perhaps  still  attaches,  to  the  names 
of  freebooters  of  this  class.  The  vulgar  eagerly  drank  in 
tales  of  their  ferocity  and  audacity,  of  their  occasional  acts 
of  generosity  and  good  nature,  of  their  amours,  of  their 
miraculous  escapes,  of  their  desperate  struggles,  and  of  their 
manly  bearing  at  the  bar  and  in  the  cart.  Thus  it  was  related 
of  William  Nevison,  the  great  robber  of  Yorkshire,  that  he 
levied  a  quarterly  tribute  on  all  the»  northern  drovers,  and,  in 
return,  not  only  spared  them  himself,  but  protected  them 
against  all  other  thieves  ;  that  he  demanded  purses  in  the 
most  courteous  manner ;  that  he  gave  largely  to  the  poor 
what  he  had  taken  from  the  rich ;  that  his  life  was  once 
spared  by  the  royal  clemency,  but  that  he  again  tempted  his 
fate,  and  at  length  died,  in  1685.  on  the  gallows  of  York.t 
It  was  related  how  Claude  Duval,  the  French  page  of  the 
Duke  of  Richmond,  took  to  the  road,  became  captain  of  a 
formidable  gang,  and  had  .the  honor  to  be  named  first  in  a 
•oyal  proclamation  against  notorious  offenders ;  how  at  the 
head  of  his  troop  he  stopped  a  lady's  coach,  in  which  there 
was  a  booty  of  four  hundred  pounds  ;  how  he  took  only  one 
hundred,  and  suffered  the  fair  owner  to  ransom  the  rest  by 
dancing  a  coranto  with  him  on  the  heath  ;  how  his  vivacious 
gallantry  stole  away  the  hearts  of  all  women  ;  how  his  dex- 
terity at  sword  and  pistol  made  him  a  terror  to  all  men ;  how, 
at  length,  in  the  year  1670,  he  was  seized  when  overcome  by 
wine  ;  how  dames  of  high  rank  visited  him  in  prison,  and 
with  tears  interceded  for  his  life  ;  how  the  king  would  have 
granted  a  pardon  but  for  the  interference  of  Judge  Morton, 
the  terror  of  highwaymen,  who  threatened  to  resign  his  office 
unless  the  law  were  carried  into  full  effect ;  and  how,  after 

*  Aimwell.      Pray,  sir,  han't  I  seen  your  face  at  Will's  coffee- 
house ? 

Gibbet.     Yes,  sir,  and  at  White's  too.  —  Beaux'  Stratagem. 
t  Gent's  History  of  York.     Another  marauder  of  the  same  de- 
scription, named  Biss,  was  hanged  at  Salisbury  in  1695.     In  a  ballad 
which  is  in  the  Pepysian  Library,  he  is  represented  as  defending  him- 
self thus  before  the  Judge  :  — 

"  What  say  you  now,  my  honored  Lord  * 
What  harm  was  there  in  this  ? 
Rich,  wealthy  misers  were  abhorred 
By  brave,  freehearted  Biss." 


300  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  execution,  the  corpse  lay  in  state  with  all  the  pomp  of 
scutcheons,  wax  lights,  black  hangings  and  mutes,  till  the 
same  cruel  judge,  who  had  intercepted  the  mercy  of  the 
crown,  sent  officers  to  disturb  the  obsequies.*  In  these  anec- 
dotes there  is  doubtless  a  large  mixture  of  fable  ;  but  they 
are  not  on  that  account  unworthy  of  being  recorded  ;  for  it  is 
both  an  authentic  and  an  important  fact,  that  such  tales, 
whether  false  or  true,  were  heard  by  our  ancestors  with 
eagerness  and  faith. 

All  the  various  dangers  by  which  the  traveller  was  beset 
were  greatly  increased  by  darkness.  He  was  therefore  com- 
monly desirous  of  having  the  shelter  of  a  roof  during  the 
night ;  and  such  shelter  it  was  not  difficult  .to  obtain.  From 
a  very  early  period  the  inns  of  England  had  been  renowned. 
Our  first  great  poet  had  described  the  excellent  accommoda- 
tion which  they  afforded  to  the  pilgrims  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Nine  and  twenty  persons,  with  their  horses,  found 
room  in  the  wide  chambers  and  stables  of  the  Tabard  in 
Southwark.  The  food  was  of  the  best,  and  the  wines  such 
as  drew  the  company  on  to  drink  largely.  Two  hundred 
years  later,  under  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  William  Harrison 
gave  a  lively  description  of  the  plenty  and  comfort  of  the 
great  hostelries.  The  continent  of  Europe,  he  said,  could 
show  nothing  like  them.  There  were  some  in  which  two  or 
three  hundred  people,  with  their  horses,  could  without  dif- 
ficulty be  lodged  and  fed.  The  bedding,  the  tapestry,  above 
nil,  the  abundance  of  clean  and  fine  linen,  was  matter  of 
wonder.  Valuable  plate  was  often  set  on  the  tables.  Nay, 
there  were  signs  which  had  cost  thirty  or  forty  pounds.  In 
the  seventeenth  century  England  abounded  with  excellent 
inns  of  every  rank.  The  traveller  sometimes,  in  a  small 
village,  lighted  on  a  public  house  such  as  Walton  has  de- 
scribed, where  the  brick  floor  was  swept  clean,  where  the 
wjills  were  stuck  round  with  ballads,  where  the  sheets  smelt 
of  lavender,  and  where  a  blazing  fire,  a  cup  of  good  ale,  and 
a  dish  of  trouts  fresh  from  the  neighboring  brook,  were  to  be 
procured  at  small  charge.  At  the  larger  houses  of  entertain- 
ment were  to  be  found  beds  hung  with  silk,  choice  cookery 


*  Pope's  Memoirs  of  Duval,  published  immediately  after  tho  ex- 
ecution.    Oates's  Elxuv  faatiiiti-,  Part  I. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  301 

and  claret  equal  to  the  best  which  was  drunk  in  London.* 
The  innkeepers,  too,  it  was  said,  were  not  like  other  innkeep- 
ers. On  the  Continent  the  landlord  was  the  tyrant  of  those 
who  crossed  the  threshold.  In  England  he  was  a  servant. 
Never  was  an  Englishman  more  at  home  than  when  he  took 
his  ease  in  his  inn.  Even  men  of  fortune,  who  might  in  their 
own  mansions  have  enjoyed  every  luxury,  were  often  in  the 
habit  of  passing  their  evenings  in  the  parlor  of  some  neigh- 
boring house  of  public  entertainment.  They  seem  to  have 
thought  that  comfort  and  freedom  could  in  no  other  place  be 
enjoyed  in  equal  perfection.  This  feeling  continued  during 
many  generations  to  be  a  national  peculiarity.  The  liberty 
and  jollity  of  inns  long  furnished  matter  to^our  novelists  and 
dramatists.  Johnson  declared  that  a  tavern  chair  was  the 
throne  of  human  felicity  ;  and  Shenstone  gently  complained 
that  no  private  roof,  however  friendly,  gave  the  wanderer  so 
warm  a.  welcome  as  that  which  was  to  be  found  at  an  inn. 

Many  conveniences,  which  were  unknown  at  Hampton 
Court  and  Whitehall  in  the  seventeenth  century,  are  to  be 
found  in  our  modern  hotels.  Yet  on  the  whole  it  is  certain 
that  the  improvement  of  our  houses  of  public  entertainment 
has  by  no  means  kept  pace  with  the  improvement  of  our 
roads  and  of  our  conveyances.  Nor  is  this  strange  ;  for  it  is 
evident  that,  all  other  circumstances  being  supposed  equal, 
the  inns  will  be  best  where  the  means  of  locomotion  are 
worst.  The  quicker  the  rate  of  travelling,  the  less  important 
is  it  that  there  should  be  numerous  agreeable  resting-places 
for  the  traveller.  A  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  a  person 
who  came  up  to  the  capital  from  a  remote  county  generally 
required  twelve  or  fifteen  meals,  and  lodging  for  five  or  six 
nights  by  the  way.  If  he  were  a  great  man,  he  expected 
the  meals  and  lodging  to  ,be  comfortable,  and  even  luxurious. 
Al  present,  we  fly  from  York  or  Chester  to  London  by  the 
light  of  a  single  winter's  day.  At  present,  therefore,  a  trav- 
eller seldom  interrupts  his  journey  merely  for'  the  sake  of 
rest  and  refreshment.  The  consequence  is,  that  hundreds  of 
excellent  inns  have  fallen"  into  utter  decay.  In  a  short  time, 
no  good  houses  of  that  description  will  be  found,  except  at 

*  See  the  prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  Harrison's  Historical 
Description  of  the  Island  of  Great  Britain,  and  Pepys's  account  of  his 
tour  in  the  summer  of  1668.     The  excellence  of  the  English  inns  is 
noticed  in  the  Travels  of  the  Grand  Duke  Cosmo. 
VOL.  I.  26 


302  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

places  where,  strangers  are  likely  to  be  detained  by  business 
or  pleasure. 

The  mode  in  which  correspondence  was  carried  on  be- 
tween distant  places  may  excite  the  scorn  of  the  present 
generation  ;  yet  it  was  such  as  might  have  moved  the  admi- 
ration and  envy  of  the  polished  nations  of  antiquity,  or  of  the 
contemporaries  of  Raleigh  and  Cecil.  A  rude  and  imperfect 
establishment  of  posts  for  the  conveyance  of  letters  had  been 
set  up  by  Charles  the  First,  and  had  been  swept  away  by  the 
civil  war.  Under  the  Commonwealth  the  design  was  resumed. 
At  the  Restoration,  the  proceeds  of  the  post-office,  after  all 
expenses  had  been  paid,  were  settled  on  the  Duke  of  "York. 
On  most  lines  of  road  the  mails  went  out  and  came  in  only 
on  the  alternate  days.  In  Cornwall,  in  the  fens  of  Lincoln- 
shire, and  among  the  hills  and  lakes  of  Cumberland,  letters 
were  received  only  once  a  week.  During  a  royal  progress 
a  daily  post  was  despatched  from  the  capital  to  the  place1  where 
the  court  sojourned.  There  was  also  daily  communication 
between  London  and  the  Downs ;  and  the  same  privilege  was 
sometimes  extended  to  Tunbridge  Wells  and  Bath  at  the  sea- 
sons when  those  places  were  crowded  by  the  great.  The 
bags  were  carried  on  horseback  day  and  night,  at  the  rate  of 
about  five  miles  an  hour.* 

The  revenue  of  this  establishment  was  not  derived  solely 
from  the  charge  for  the  transmission  of  letters.  The  post- 
office  alone  was  entitled  to  furnish  post  horses  ;  and,  from  the 
care  with  which  this  monopoly  was  guarded,  we  may  infer 
that  it  was  found  profitable.t  If,  indeed,  a  traveller  had  wait- 
ed half  an  hour  without  being  supplied,  he  might  hire  a  horse 
wherever  he  could. 

To  facilitate  correspondence  betweeri  one  part  of  London 
and  another  was  not  originally  one  of  the  objects  of  the  post- 
office.  But,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  an  enter- 
prising citizen  of  London,  William  Dockwray,  set  up,  at  great 
expense,  a  penny  post,  which  delivered  letters  and  parcels 
six  or  eight  times  a  day  in  the  busy  and  crowded  streets  near 
the  Exchange,  and  four  times  a  day  in  the  outskirts  of  the 
capital.  This  improvement  was,  as  usual,  strenuously  re- 

*  Stat.  12  Car.  H.  c.  35.  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1G84. 
Angliae  Metropolis,  1690.  London  Gazette,  June  22,  1685.  Augusl 
15,  1687. 

t  London  Gazette,  Sept.  14,  1685. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  303 

sisted.  The  porters  complained  that  their  interests  were  at 
tacked,  and  tore  down  the  placards  in  which  the  scheme  was 
announced  to  the  public.  The  excitement  caused  by  God- 
frey's  death,  and  by  the  discovery  of  Coleman's  papers,  was 
then  at  the  height.  A  cry  was  therefore  raised  that  the  penny 
post  was  a  Popish  contrivance.  The  great  Doctor  Gates,  it  was 
affirmed,  had  hinted  a  suspicion  that  the  Jesuits  were  at  the 
bottom  of  the  scheme,  and  that  the  bags,  if  examined,  would 
be  found  full  of  treason.*  The  utility  of  the  enterprise  was, 
however,  so  great  and  obvious,  that  all  opposition  proved 
fruitless.  As  soon  as  it  became  clear  that  the  speculation 
would  be  lucrative,  the  Duke  of  York  complained  of  it  as  an 
infraction  of  his  monopoly,  and  the  courts  of  law  decided  in 
his  favor.t 

The  revenue  of  the  post-office  was  from  the  first  constant- 
ly increasing.  In  the  year  of  the  Restoration  a  committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  after  strict  inquiry,  had  estimated 
the  net  receipt  at  about  twenty  thousand  pounds.  At  the 
close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  net  receipt  was 
little  short  of  fifty  thousand  pounds  ;  and  this  was  then  thought 
a  stupendous  sum.  The  gross  receipt  was  about  seventy 
thousand  pounds.J  The  charge  for  conveying  a  single  letter 
was  twopence  for  eighty  miles,  and  threepence  for  a  longer 
distance.  The  postage  increased  in  proportion  to  the  weight 
of  the  packet.  At  present,  a  single  letter  is  carried  to  the 
extremity  of  Scotland  or  of  Ireland  for  a  penny  ;  and  the 
monopoly  of  post  horses  has  long  ceased 'to  exist.  Yet  the 
gross  annual  receipts  of  the  department  amount  to  more  than 
1,800,OOOZ.,  and  the  net  receipts  to  more  than  700,OOOZ.  It 
is,  therefore,  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that  the  number  of 
letters  now  conveyed  by  mail  is  seventy  times  the  number 
which  was  so  conveyed  at  the  time  of  the  accession  of  James 
the  Second. 

No  part  of  the  load  which  the  old  mails  carried  out  was 
more  important  than  the  newsletters.  In  1685  nothing  like 
the  London  daily  paper  of  our  time  existed,  or  could  exist. 
Neither  the  necessary  capital  nor  the  necessary  skill  was  to  be 
found.  Freedom,  too,  was  wanting,  a  want  as  fatal  as  that  of 

*  Smith's  Current  Intelligence,  March  30  and  April  3,  1680. 
t  Anglise  Metropolis,  1690. 

j  Chamberlayne,  1684.     Davenant  on  the   Public  Revenue,  Di» 
course  IV. 


304  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

either  capital  or  skill.  The  press  was  not  indeed  at  that 
moment  under  a  general  censorship.  The  licensing  act, 
which  had  been  passed  soon  after  the  Restoration,  had  ex- 
pired in  1679.  Any  person  might,  therefore,  print,  at  his 
own  risk,  a  history,  a  sermon,  or  a  poem,  without  the  previ- 
ous approbation  of  any  public  officer;  but  the  judges  were 
unanimously  of  opinion  that  this  liberty  did  not  extend  to  Ga- 
zettes, and  that,  by  the  common  law  of  England,  no  man,  not 
authorized  by  the  crown,  had  a  right  to  publish  political 
news.*  While  the  Whig  party  was  still  formidable,  the  gov- 
ernment thought  it  expedient  occasionally  to  connive  at  the 
violation  of  this  rule.  During  the  great  battle  of  the  Exclusion 
Bill,  many  newspapers  were  suffered  to  appear,  the  Protes- 
tant Intelligence,  the  Current  Intelligence,  the  Domestic  Intel- 
ligence, the  True  News,  the  London  Mercury.t  None  of 
these  was  published  oftener  than  twice  a  week.  None  ex- 
ceeded in  size  a  single  small  leaf.  The  quantity  of  matter 
which  one  of  them  contained  in  a  year  was  not  more  than  is 
often  found  in  two  numbers  of  the  Times.  After  the  defeat 
of  the  Whigs  it  was  no  longer  necessary  for  the  king  to  be 
sparing  in  the  use  of  that  which  all  his  Judges  had  pro- 
nounced to  be  his  undoubted  prerogative.  At  the  close  of 
his  reign,  no  newspaper  was  suffered  to  appear  without  his 
allowance ;  and  his  allowance  was  given  exclusively  to  the 
London  Gazette.  The  London  Gazette  came  out  only  on 
Mondays  and  Thursdays.  The  contents  generally  were  a 
royal  proclamation,  two  or  three  Tory  addresses,  notices  of 
two  or  three  promotions,  an  account  of  a  skirmish  between 
the  imperial  troops  and  the  Janizaries  on  the  Danube,  a  de- 
scription of  a  highwayman,  an  announcement  of  a  grand 
cockfight  between  two  persons  of  honor,  and  an  advertisement 
offering  a  reward  for  a  strayed  dog.  The  whole  made  up 
two  pages  of  moderate  size.  Whatever  was  communicated 
respecting  matters  of  the  highest  moment  was  communicated 
in  the  most  meagre  and  formal  style.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
when  the  government  was  disposed  to  gratify  the  public  curi- 
osity respecting  an  important  transaction,  a  broadside  was  put 
forth,  giving  fuller  details  than  could  be  found  in  the  Ga- 
zette ;  but  neither  the  Gazette  nor  any  supplementary  broad- 

*  London  Gazette,  May  5  and  17,  1680. 

t  There  is  a  very  curious  and,  I  should  think,  unique  collection  of 
these  papers  at  the  British  Museum. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  305 

«ide  printed  by  authority  ever  contained  any  intelligence  which 
rt  did  not  suit  the  purposes  of  the  coi  ft  to  publish.  The 
most  important  parliamentary  debates,  the  most  important 
state  trials,  recorded  in  our  history,  were  passed  over  in  pro- 
found silence.*  In  the  capital  the  coffee-houses  supplied, 
in  some  measure,  the  place  of  a  journal.  Thither  the  Lon- 
doners flocked  as  the  Athenians  of  old  flocked  to  the  market 
place  to  hear  whether  there  was  any  news.  There  men  might 
learn  how  brutally  a  Whig  had  been  treated  the  day  before  in 
Westminster  Hall,  what  horrible  accounts  the  letters  from  Ed- 
inburgh gave  of  the  torturing  of  Covenanters,  how  grossly 
the  navy  board  had  cheated  the  crown  in  the  victualling  of 
the  fleet,  and  what  grave  charges  the  Lord  Privy  Seal  had 
brought  against  the  Treasury  in  the  matter  of  the  hearth  mon- 
ey. But  people  who  lived  at  a  distance  from  the  great-  thea- 
tre of  political  contention  could  be  kept  regularly  informed 
of  what  was  passing  there  only  by  means  of  newsletters. 
To  prepare  such  letters  became  a  calling  in  London,  as  it 
now  is  among  the  natives  of  India.  The  newswriter  rambled 
from  coffee-room  to  coffee-room,  collecting  reports,  squeezed 
himself  into  the  Sessions  House  at  the  Old  Bailey,  if  there 
was  an  interesting  trial,  nay,  perhaps  obtained  admission  to 
the  gallery  of  Whitehall,  and  noticed  how  the  king  and  duke 
looked.  In  this  way  he  gathered  materials  for  weekly  epis- 
tles, destined  to  enlighten  some  country  town  or  some  bench 
of  rustic  magistrates.  Such  were  the  sources  from  which 
the  inhabitants  of  the  largest  provincial  cities,  and  the  great 
body  of  the  gentry  and  clergy,  learned  almost  all  that  they 
knew  of  the  history  of  their  own  time.  We  must  suppose 
that  at  Cambridge  there  were  as  many  persons  curious  to 
know  what  was  passing  in  the  world  as  at  almost  any  place 
in  the  kingdom,  out  of  London.  Yet  at  Cambridge,  during 
a  great  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  doctors 
of  laws  and  the  masters  of  arts  had  no  regular  supply  of 
news,  except  through  the  London  Gazette.  At  length  the  ser- 
vices of  one  of  the  collectors  of  intelligence  in  the  capital 
were  employed.  That  was  a  memorable  day  on  which  the 
first  newsletter  from  London  was  laid  on  the  table  of  the  only 

*  For  example,  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  Gazette  about  the  im- 
portant parliamentary  proceedings  of  November,  1685,  or  about  the 
trial  and  acquittal  of  the  seven  bishops. 

26* 


306  BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

coffee-room  in  Cambridge.*  At  the  seat  of  a  man  of  fortune 
in  the  country,  the  newsletter  was  impatiently  expected. 
Within  a  week  after  it  had  arrived,  it  had  been  thumbed  by 
twenty  families.  It  furnished  the  neighboring  squires  with 
matter  for  talk  over  their  October,  and  the  neighboring  rectors 
with  topics  for  sharp  sermons  against  Whiggery  or  Popery. 
'  Many  of  these  curious  journals  might  doubtless  still  be  de- 
tected by  a  diligent  search  in  the  archives  of  old  families. 
Some  are  to  be  found  in  our  public  libraries ;  and  one  series, 
which  is  not  the  least  valuable  part  of  the  literary  treasures 
collected  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  will  be  occasionally  quoted 
in  the  course  of  this  work.t 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  there  were  then  no 
provincial  newspapers.  Indeed,  except  in  the  capital  and  at 
the  two  universities,  there  was  scarcely  a  printer  in  the  king- 
dom. The  only  press  in  England  north  of  Trent  appears 
to  have  been  at  York.| 

It  was  not  only  by  means  of  the  London  Gazette  that  the 
government  undertook  to  furnish  political  instruction  to  the 
people.  That  journal  contained  a  scanty  supply  of  news 
without  comment.  Another  journal,  published  under  the  pat- 
ronage of  the  court,  consisted  of  comment  without  news 
This  paper,  called  the  Observator,  was  edited  by  an  old  Tory 
pamphleteer  named  Roger  Lestrange.  Lestrange  was  by  no 
means  deficient  in  readiness  and  shrewdness  ;  and  his  diction, 
though  coarse,  and  disfigured  by  a  mean  and  flippant  jargon 
which  then  passed  for  wit  in  the  greenroom  and  the  tavern, 
was  not  without  keenness  and  vigor.  But  his  nature,  at  once 

*  Roger  North's  Life  of  Dr.  John  North.  On  the  subject  of  news- 
letters, see  the  Examen,  133. 

t  I  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  my  warm  gratitude  to  the 
family  of  my  dear  and  honored  friend  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  for 
confiding  to  me  the  materials  collected  by  him  at  a  time  when  he 
meditated  a  work  similar  to  that  which  I  have  undertaken.  I  have 
never  seen,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  there  anywhere  exists,  within 
the  same  compass,  so  noble  a  collection  of  extracts  from  public  and 
private  archives.  The  judgment  with  which  Sir  James,  in  great 
masses  of  the  rudest  ore  of  history,  selected  what  was  valuable,  and 
rejected  what  was  worthless,  can  be  fully  appreciated  only  by  one 
who  has  toiled  after  him  in  the  same  mine. 

J  Life  of  Thomas  Gent.     A  complete  list  of  all  printing  houses  in 

1724  will  be  found  in  Nichols's  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  eighteenth 

century.     There  had  then  been  a  great  increase  within  a  few  years  in 

— the  number  of  presses;  and  yet  there  were  thirty-four  counties  iu 

which  there  was  no  printer,  one  of  those  counties  being  Lancashire. 


HISTORY    OP. ENGLAND.  307 

ferocious  and  ignoble,  showed  itself  in  every  line  that  ha 
penned.  When  the  first  Observators  appeared,  there  was 
some  excuse  for  his  acrimony.  For  the  Whigs  were  then 
powerful ;  and  he  had  to  contend  against  numerous  adversa 
ries,  whose  unscrupulous  violence  might  seem  to  justify  un 
sparing  retaliation.  But  in  1685  all  opposition  had  been 
crushed.  A  generous  spirit  would  have  disdained  to  insult  a 
party  which  could  not  reply,  and  to  aggravate  the  misery  of 
prisoners,  of  exiles,  of  bereaved  families ;  but  from  the  malice 
of  Lestrange  the  grave  was  no  hiding-place,  and  the  house  of 
mourning  no  sanctuary.  In  the  last  month  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  William  Jenkyn,  an  aged  dissenting  pas- 
tor of  great  note,  who  had  been  cruelly  persecuted  for  no 
crime  but  that  of  worshipping  God  according  to  the  fashion 
generally  followed  throughout  Protestant  Europe,  died  of 
hardships  and  privations  in  Newgate.  The  outbreak  of  pop- 
ular sympathy  could  not  be  repressed.  The  corpse  was  fol- 
lowed to  the  grave  by  a  train  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  coaches. 
Even  courtiers  looked  sad.  Even  the  unthinking  king  showed 
some  signs  of  concern.  Lestrange  alone  set  up  a  howl  of 
savage  exultation,  laughed  at  the  weak  compassion  of  the 
Trimmers,  proclaimed  that  the  blasphemous  old  impostor  had 
met  with  a  most  righteous  punishment,  and  vowed  to  wage 
war,  not  only  to  the  death,  but  after  death,  with  all  the  mock 
saints  and  martyrs.*  Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  paper  which 
was  at  this  time  the  oracle  of  the  Tory  party,  and  especially 
of  the  parochial  clergy. 

Literature  which  could  be  carried  by  the  post  bag  then 
formed  the  greater  part  of  the  intellectual  nutriment  rumi- 
nated by  the  country  divines  and  country  justices.  The  dif- 
ficulty and  expense  of  conveying  large  packets  from  place  to 
place  was  so  great,  that  an  extensive  work  was  longer  in 
making  its  way  from  Paternoster  Row  to  Devonshire  or  Lan- 
cashire, than  it  now  is  in  reaching  Kentucky.  How  scantily 
a  rural  parsonage  was  then  furnished,  even  with  books  the 
most  necessary  to  a  theologian,  has  already  been  remarked. 
The  houses  of  the  gentry  were  not  more  plentifully  supplied. 
Pew  knights  of  the  shire  had  libraries  so  good  as  may  now 
perpatually  be  found  in  a  servant's  hall,  or  in  the  back  parlor 
of  a  small  shopkeeper.  An  esquire  passed  among  his  neigh- 

*  Observator,  Jan.  29  and  31,  1685.  Calamy's  Life  of  Baxter 
Nonconformist  Memorial. 


308  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

bors  for  a  great  scholar,  if  Hudibras  and  Baker's  Chronicle 
Tarlton's  Jests  and  the  Seven  Champions  of  Christendom,  lay 
in  his  hall  window  among  the  fishing-rods  and  fowling-pieces. 
No  circulating  library,  no  book  society,  then  existed  even  in 
the  capital ;  but  in  the  capital  those  students  who  could  not 
afford  to  purchase  largely  had  a  resource.  The  shops  of  the 
great  booksellers,  near  Saint  Paul's  Churchyard,  were  crowded 
every  day  and  all  day  long  with  readers ;  and  a  known  cus- 
tomer was  often  permitted  to  carry  a  volume  home.  In  the 
country  there  was  no  such  accommodation ;  and  every  man 
was  under  the  necessity  of  buying  whatever  he  wished  to 
read.* 

As  to  the  lady  of  the  manor  and  her  daughters,  their  literary 
stores  generally  consisted  of  a  prayer  book  and  a  receipt 
book.  But  in  truth  they  lost  little  by  living  in  rural  seclu- 
sion. For,  even  in  the  highest  ranks,  and  in  those  situations 
which  afforded  the  greatest  facilities  for  mental  improvement, 
the  English  women  of  that  generation  were  decidedly  worse 
educated  than  they  have  been  at  any  other  time  since  the 
revival  of  learning.  At  an  earlier  period,  they  had  studied 
the  masterpieces  of  ancient  genius.  In  the  present  day,  they 
seldom  bestow  much  attention  on  the  dead  languages  ;  but  they 
are  familiar  with  the  tongue  of  Pascal  and  Moliere,  with  the 
tongue  of  Dante  and  Tasso,  with  the  tongue  of  Goethe  and 
Schiller ;  nor  is  there  any  purer  or  more  graceful  English  than 
that  which  accomplished  women  now  speak  and  write.  But, 
during  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  culture 
of  the  female  mind  seems  t6  have  been  almost  entirely  .neg- 
lected. If  a  damsel  had  the  l£ast  smattering  of  literature, 
she  was  regarded  as  a  prodigy.  Ladies  highly  born,  highly 
bred,  and  naturally  quick-witted,  were  unable  to  write  a  line 
in  their  mother  tongue  without  solecisms  and  faults  of  spelling 
such  as  a  charity  girl  would  now  be  ashamed  to  commit.! 

*  Cotton  seems,  from  his  Angler,  to  have  found  room  for  his  whole 
library  in  his  hall  window  ;  and  Cotton  was  a  man  of  letters.  Even 
when  Franklin  first  visited  London  in  1 724,  circulating  libraries  were 
unknown  there.  The  crowd  at  the  booksellers'  shops  in  Little  Britain 
is  mentioned  by  Roger  North  in  his  Life  of  his  brother  John. 

f  One  instance  will  suffice.  Queen  Mary  had  good  natural  abili- 
ties, had  been  educated  by  a  bishop,  was  fond  of  history  and  poetry, 
and  was  regarded  by  very  eminent  men  as  a  superior  woman.  There 
is,  in  the  library  of  the  Hague,  a  superb  English  Bible  which  was 
delivered  to  her  when  she  was  crowned  in  Westminster  Abbey.  In 
the  title  page  are  these  words  in  her  own  hand :  "  This  book  was  given 
the  King  and  I,  at  our  crownation.  Marie  R." 


HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND.  309 

The  explanation  may  easily  be  found.  Extravagant  licen- 
tiousness, the  natural,  effect  of  extravagant  austerity,  was  now 
the  mode ;  and  licentiousness  had  produced  its  ordinary  effect, 
the  moral  and  intellectual  degradation  of  women.  To  their 
personal  beauty  it  was  the  fashion  to  pay  rude  and  impudent 
homage.  But  the  admiration  and  desire  which  they  inspired 
were  seldom  mingled  with  respect,  with  affection,  or  with  any 
chivalrous  sentiment.  The  qualities  which  fit  them  to  be 
companions,  advisers,  confidential  friends,  rather  repelled  than 
attracted  the  libertines  of  Whitehall.  In  that  court,  a  maid 
of  honor,  who  dressed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  do  full  justice 
to  a  white  bosom,  who  ogled  significantly,  who  danced  volup- 
tuously, who  excelled  in  pert  repartee,  who  was  not  ashamed 
to  romp  with  lords  of  the  bedchamber  and  captains  of  the 
guards,  to  sing  sly  verses  with  sly  expression,  or  to  put  on  a 
page's  dress  for  a  frolic,  was  more  likely  to  be  followed  and 
admired,  more  likely  to  be  honored  with  royal  attentions,  more 
likely  to  win  a  rich  and  noble  husband,  than  Jane  Grey  or 
Lucy  Hutchinson  would  have  been.  In  such  circumstances, 
the  standard  of  female  attainments  was  necessarily  low  ;  and 
it  was  more  dangerous  to  be  above  that  standard  than  to  be 
beneath  it.  Extreme  ignorance  and  frivolity  were  thought 
less  unbecoming  in  a  lady  than  the  slightest  tincture  of  ped- 
antry. Of  the  too  celebrated  women  whose  faces  we  still 
admire  on  the  walls  of  Hampton  Court,  few  indeed  were  in 
the  habit  of  reading  any  thing  more  valuable  than  acrostics, 
lampoons,  and  translations  of  the  Clelia  and  the  Grand  Cyrus. 

The  literary  acquirements,  even  of  the  accomplished  gen- 
tlemen of  that  generation,  seem  to  have  been  somewhat  less 
solid  and  profound  than  at  an  earlier  or  a  later  period.  Greek 
learning,  at  least,  did  not  flourish  among  us  in  the  days  of 
Charles  the  Second,  as  it  had  flourished  before  the  civil  war, 
or  as  it  again  flourished  long  after  the  revolution.  There 
were  undoubtedly  scholars  to  whom  the  whole  Greek  litera- 
ture, from  Homer  to  Photius,  was  familiar ;  but  such  scholars 
were  to  be  found  almost  exclusively  among  the  clergy  resi- 
dent at  the  universities,  and  even  at  the  universities  were  few, 
and  were  not  fully  appreciated.  At  Cambridge  it  was  not 
thought  by  any  means  necessary  that  a  divine  should  be  able 
to  read  the  Gospels  in  the  original.*  Nor  was  the  standard  at 

*  Roger  North,  tells  us  that  his  brother  John,  \vho  was  Greek  pro- 
fessor at  Cambridge,  complained  bitterly  of  the  general  neglect  of  the 
Greek  tonguo  among  the  academical  clergy. 


310  HISTORY    0V    ENGLAND. 

Oxford  higher.  When,  in  the  reign  of  William  the  Third, 
Christ  Church  rose  up  as  one  man  to  defend  the  genuineness 
of  the  Epistles  of  Phalaris,  that  great  college,  then  considered 
as  the  first  seat  of  philology  in  the  kingdom,  cotold  not  muster 
such  a  stock  of  Attic  learning  as  is  now  possessed  by  several 
youths  at  every  great  public  school.  It  may  easily  be  sup- 
posed that  a  dead  language,  neglected  at  the  universities,  was 
not  much  studied  by  men  of  the  world.  In  a  former  age,  the 
poetry  and  eloquence  of  Greece  had  been  the  delight  of  Ra- 
leigh and  Falkland.  In  a  later  age,  the  poetry  and  eloquence 
of  Greece  were  the  delight  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  of  Windham  and 
Grenville.  But,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, there  was  in  England  scarcely  one  eminent  statesman 
who  could  read  with  enjoyment  a  page  of  Sophocles  or  Plato. 

Good  Latin  scholars  were  numerous.  The  language  of 
Rome,  indeed,  had  not  altogether  lost  its  imperial  character, 
and  was  still,  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  almost  indispensable 
to  a  traveller  or  a  negotiator.  To  speak  it  well  was  therefore 
a  much  more  common  accomplishment  than  in  our  time  ;  and 
neither  Oxford  nor  Cambridge  wanted  poets  who,  on  a  great 
occasion,  could  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  throne  happy  imitations 
of  the  verses  in  which  Virgil  and  Ovid  had  celebrated  the 
greatness  of^Augustus. 

Yet  even  the  Latin  was  giving  way  to  a  younger  rival. 
France  united  at  that  time  almost  every  species  of  ascen- 
dency. Her  military  glory  was  at  the  height.  She  had  van- 
quished mighty  coalitions.  She  had  dictated  treaties.  She 
had  subjugated  great  cities  and  provinces.  She  had  forced 
the  Castilian  pride  to  yield  her  the  precedence.  She  had 
summoned  Italian  princes  to  prostrate  themselves  at  her  foot- 
stool. Her  authority  was  supreme  in  all  matters  of  good 
breeding,  from  a  duel  to  a  minuet.  She  determined  how  a 
gentleman's  coat  must  be  cut,  how  long  his  peruke  must  be, 
whether  his  heels  must  be  high  or  low,  and  whether  the  lace 
on  his  hat  must  be  broad  or  narrow.  In  literature  she  gave 
law  to  the  world.  The  fame  of  her  great  writers  filled  Eu- 
rope. No  other  country  could  produce  a  tragic  poet  equal  to 
Racine,  a  comic  poet  equal  to  Moliere,  a  trifler  so  agreeable 
as  La  Fontaine,  a  rhetorician  so  skilful  as  Bossuet.  The  lit- 
erary glory  of  Italy  and  of  Spain  had  set ;  that  of  Germany 
had  not  yet  dawned.  The  genius,  therefore,  of  the  eminent 
men  who  adorned  Paris  shone  forth  with  a  splendor  which 
was  set  off  to  full  advantage  by  contrast.  France,  indeed 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  3  .1 

had  at  that  time  an  empire  over  mankind,  such  as  even  the 
Roman  Republic  never  attained.  For,  when  Rome  was  politi- 
cally dominant,  she  was  in  arts  and  letters  the  humble  pupil 
of  Greece.  France  had,  over  the  surrounding  countries,  at 
once  the  ascendency  which  Rome  had  over  Greece,  and  the 
ascendency  which  Greece  had  over  Rome.  French  was  fast 
becoming  the  universal  language,  the  language  of  fashionable 
society,  the  language  of  diplomacy.  At  several  courts  princes 
and  nobles  spoke  it  more  accurately  and  politely  than  their 
/nother  tongue.  In  our  island  there  was  less  of  this  servility 
than  on  the  Continent.  Neither  our  good  nor  our  bad  quali- 
ties were  those  of  imitators.  Yet  even  here  homage  was  paid, 
awkwardly  indeed  and  sullenly,  to  the  literary  supremacy  of 
our  neighbors.  The  melodious  Tuscan,  so  familiar  to  the 
gallants  and  ladies  of  the  court  of  Elizabeth,  sank  into  con- 
tempt. A  gentleman  who  quoted  Horace  or  Terence  was 
considered  in  good  company  as  a  pompous  pedant.  But  to 
garnish  his  conversation  with  scraps  of  French  was  the  best 
proof  which  he  could  give  of  his  parts  and  attainments.* 
New  canons  of  criticism,  new  models  of  style  came  into  fash- 
ion. The  quaint  ingenuity  which,  had  deformed  the  verses  of 
Donne,  and  had  been  a  blemish  on  those  of  Cowley,  disap- 
peared from  our  poetry.  Our  prose  became  less  majestic, 
less  artfully  involved,  less  variously  musical  than  that  of  an 
earlier  age,  but  more  lucid,  more  easy,  and  better  fitted  for 
controversy  and  narrative.  In  these  changes  it  is  impossible 
not  to  recognize  the  influence  of  French  precept  and  of 
French  example.  Great  masters  of  our  language,  in  their 
most  dignified  compositions,  affected  to  use  French  words, 
when  English  words,  quite  as  expressive  and  melodious,  were 
at  hand:t  and  from  France  was  imported  the  tragedy  in 
rhyme,  an  exotic  which,  in  our  soil,  drooped,  and  speedily  died. 

*  Butler,  in  a  satire  of  great  asperity,  says, 

"  For,  though  to  smatter  words  of  Greek 
And  Latin  be  the  rhetorique 
Of  pedants  counted,  and  vainglorious, 
To  smatter  French  is  meritorious." 

T  The  most  offensive  instance  which  I  remember  is  in  a  poem  on 
the  coronation  of  Charles  the  Second  by  Dryden,  who  certainly  could 
not  plead  poverty  as  an  excuse  for  borrowing  words  from  any  foreign 
tongue : —  » 

"  Hither  in  summer  evenings  you  repair, 
To  taste  the  fraicheur  of  tho  cooler  air." 


312  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

It  would  have  been  well  if  our  writers  had  also  copied  the 
decorum  which  their  great  French  contemporaries,  with  few 
exceptions,  preserved  ;  for  the  profligacy  of  the  English  plays, 
satires,  songs,  and  novels  of  that  age  is  a  deep  blot  on  our 
national  fame.  The  evil  may  easily  be  traced  to  its  source. 
The  wits  and  the  Puritans  had  never  been  on  friendly  terms 
There  was  no  sympathy  between  the  two  classes.  They 
looked  on  the  whole  system  of  human  life  from  different 
points  and  in  different  lights.  The  earnest  of  each  was  the 
jest  cf  the  other.  The  pleasures  of  each  were  the  torments 
of  the  other.  To  the  stern  precisian  even  the  innocent  sport 
of  the  fancy  seemed  a  crime.  To  light  and  festive  natures 
the  solemnity  of  the  zealous  brethren  furnished  copious  mat- 
ter of  ridicule.  From  the  Reformation  to  the  civil  war,  almost 
every  writer,  gifted  with  a  fine  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  had 
taken  some  opportunity  of  assailing  the  straight-haired,  snuf- 
fling, whining  saints,  who  christened  their  children  out  of  the 
Book  of  Nehemiah,  who  groaned  in  spirit  at  the  sight  of  Jack 
in  the  Green,  and  who  thought  it  impious  to  taste  plum  por- 
ridge on  Christmas  day.  At  length  a  time  came  when  the 
laughers  began  to  look  grave  in  their  turn.  The  rigid,  un- 
gainly zealots,  after  having  furnished  much  good  sport  during 
two  generations,  rose  up  in  arms,  conquered,  ruled,  and, 
grimly  smiling,  trod  down  under  their  feet  the  whole  crowd 
of  mockers.  The  wounds  inflicted  by  gay  and  petulant 
malice  were  retaliated  with  the  gloomy  and  implacable  malice 
peculiar  to  bigots  who  mistake  their  own  rancor  for  virtue. 
The  theatres  were  closed.  The  players  were  flogged.  The 
press  was  put  under  the  guardianship  of  austere  licensers.  The 
Muses  were  banished  from  their  own  favorite  haunts,  Cowley 
was  ejected  from  Cambridge,  and  Crashaw  from  Oxford.  The 
young  candidate  for  academical  honors  was  no  longer  required 
to  write  Ovidian  epistles  or  Virgilian  pastorals,  but  was  strictlv 
interrogated  by  a  synod  of  lowering  Supralapsarians  as  to  the 
day  and  hour  when  he  experienced  the  new  birth.  Such  a 
system  was  of  course  fruitful  of  hypocrites.  Under  sober 
clothing  and  under  visages  composed  to  the  expression  of  aus- 
terity lay  hid  during  several  years  the  intense  desire  of  license 
and  of  revenge.  At  length  that  desire  was  gratified.  The 
Restoration  emancipated  thousands  of  minds  from  a  yoke 
which  had  become  insuppprtable.  The  old  fight  recom- 
menced, but  with  an  animosity  altogether  new.  It  was  now 
not  a  sportive  combat,  but  a  war  to  the  death.  The  Round- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  313 

head  had  no  better  quarter  to  expect  from  those  whom  he  had 
persecuted  than  a  cruel  slave  driver  can  expect  from  insur- 
gent slaves  still  bearing  the  marks  of  his  collars  and  his 
scourges. 

The  war  between  wit  and  Puritanism  soon  became  a  war 
between  wit  and  morality.  The  hostility  excited  by  a  gro- 
tesque caricature  of  virtue  did  not  spare  virtue  herself.  What- 
ever the  canting  Roundhead  had  regarded  with  reverence  was 
insulted.  Whatever  he  had  proscribed  was  favored.  Be- 
cause he  had  been  scrupulous  about  trifles,  all  scruples  were 
treated  with  derision.  Because  he  had  covered  his  failings 
with  the  mask  of  devotion,  men  were  encouraged  to  obtiude 
with  Cynic  impudence  all  their  most  scandalous  vices  on  the 
public  eye.  Because  he  had  punished  illicit  love  with  barba- 
rous severity,  virgin  purity  and  conjugal  fidelity  were  to  be 
made  a  jest.  To  that  sanctimonious  jargon,  which  was  his  shib- 
boleth, was  opposed  another  jargon  not  less  absurd  and  much 
more  odious.  As  he  never  opened  his  mouth  except  in  scriptural 
phrase,  the  new  breed  of  wits  and  fine  gentlemen  never 
opened  their  mouths  without  uttering  ribaldry  of  which  a  por- 
ter would  now  be  ashamed,  and  without  calling  on  their  Maker 
to  curse  them,  sink  them,  confound  them,  blast  them,  and 
damn  them. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  our  polite  literature,  when 
it  revived  with  the  revival  of  the  old  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
polity,  should  have  been  profoundly  immoral.  A  few  eminent 
men,  who  belonged  to  an  earlier  and  better  age,  were  exempt 
from  the  general  contagion.  The  verse  of  Waller  still  breathed 
the  sentiments  which  had  animated  a  more  chivalrous  genera- 
tion. Cowley,  distinguished  at  once  as  a  loyalist  and  as  a 
man  of  letters,  raised  his  voice  courageously  against  the  im- 
morality which  disgraced  both  letters  and  loyalty.  A  mightier 
spirit-,  unsubdued  by  pain,  danger,  poverty,  obloquy,  and 
blindness,  meditated,  undisturbed  by  the  obscene  tumult  which 
raged  all  around,  a  song  so  sublime  and  so  holy  that  it  would 
not  have  misbecome  the  lips  of  those  ethereal  Virtues  whom 
he  saw,  what  that  inner  eye  which  no  calamity  could  darken, 
flinging  down  on  the  jasper  pavement  their  crowns  of  ama- 
ranth and  gold.  The  vigorous  and  fertile  genius  of  Butler, 
if  it  did  not  altogether  escape  the  prevailing  infection,  took  the 
disease  in  a  mild  form.  But  these  were  men  whose  minds  had 
been  trained  in  a  world  which  had  passed  away.  They  gave 
place  in  no  long  time  to  a  younger  generation  of  poets ;  and 
VOL.  i.  27 


314  HISTOKY    OF    ENGLAND. 

of  that  generation,  from  Dryden  down  to  Durfey,  the  com 
mon  characteristic  was  hard-hearted,  shameless,  swaggering 
licentiousness,  at  oace  inelegant  and  inhuman.  The  influence 
of  these  writers  was  doubtless  noxious,  yet  less  noxious  than 
it  would  have  been  had  they  been  less  depraved.  The  poisor 
which  they  administered  was  so  strong,  that  it  was,  in  no  long 
time,  rejected  with  nausea.  None  of  them  understood  the 
langerous  art  of  associating  images  of  unlawful  pleasure  witl 
all  that  is  endearing  and  ennobling.  None  of  them  was  awar* 
;  hat  a  certain  decprum  is  essential  even  to  voluptuousness,  tha 
irapery  may  be  more  alluring  than  exposure,  and  that  th« 
imagination  may  be  far  more  powerfully  moved  by  delicat* 
isints  which  impel  it  to  exert  itself  than  by  gross  description 
which  it  takes  in  passively. 

The  spirit  of  the  Antipuritan  reaction  pervades  almost  th« 
•  hole  polite  literature  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second 
•iut  the  very  quintessence  of  that  spirit  will  be  found  in  tht 
comic  drama.  The  playhouses,  shut  by  the  meddling  fanatic 
in  the  day  of  his  power,  were  again  crowded.  To  their  old 
-'tractions  new  and  more  powerful  attractions  had  been  added. 
Scenery,  dresses,  and  decorations  such  as  would  now  be 
thought  mean  and  absurd,  but  such  as  would  have  been  es- 
teemed incredibly  magnificent  by  those  who,  early  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  sate  on  the  filthy  benches  of  the  Hope, 
or  under  the  thatched  roof  of  the  Rose,  dazzled  the  eyes  of 
the  multitude.  The  fascination  of  sex  was  called  in  to  aid 
the  fascination  of  art ;  and  the  young  spectator  saw,  with 
emotions  unknown  to  the  contemporaries  of  Shakspeare  and 
Jonson,  tender  and  sprightly  heroines  personified  by  lovely 
women.  From  the  day  on  which  the  theatres  were  reopened 
they  became  seminaries  of  vice ;  and  the  evil  propagated 
itself.  The  profligacy  of  the  representations  soon  drove  away 
sober  people.  The  frivolous  and  dissolute  who  remaineo 
required  every  year  stronger  and  stronger  stimulants.  Thus 
the  artists  corrupted  the  spectators,  and  the  spectators  tht 
Artists,  till  the  turpitude  of  the  drama  became  such  as  mus 
istonish  all  who  are  not  aware  that  extreme  relaxation  is  the 
natural  effect  of  extreme  restraint,  and  that  an  age  of  hypoc 
risy  is,  in  the  regular  course  of  things,  followed  by  an  age  of 
impudence. 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  times  than  the  car* 
with  which  the  poets  contrived  to  put  all  their  loosest  verses 
'into  the  mouths  of  women.  The  compositions  in  which  tht 


.  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  316 

greatest  license  was  taken  were  the  epilogues.  They  were 
almost  always  recited  by  favorite  actresses ;  and  nothing 
charmed  the  depraved  audience  so  much  as  to  hear  lines 
grossly  indecent  repeated  by  a  beautiful  girl,  who  was  sup- 
posed to  have  not  yet  lost  her  innocence.* 

Our  theatre  was  indebted  in  that  age  for  many  plots  and 
characters  to  Spain,  to  France,  and  to  the  old  English  mas- 
ters; but  whatever  our  dramatists  touched  they  tainted.  In 
their  imitations  the  houses  of  Calderon's  stately  and  high  spir- 
ited Castilian  gentlemen  became  sties  of  vice,  Shakspeare's 
Viola  a  procuress,  Moliere's  misanthrope  a  ravisher,  Moliere's 
Agnes  an  adulteress.  Nothing  could  be  so  pure  or  so  heroic 
but  that  it  became  foul  and  ignoble  by  transfusion  through 
those  foul  and  ignoble  minds. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  drama  ;  and  the  drama  was  the 
department  of  polite  literature  in  which  a  poet  had  the  best 
chance  of  obtaining  a  subsistence  by  his  pen.  The  sale  of 
books  was  so  small  that  a  man  of  the  greatest  name  could  ex- 
pect only  a  pittance  for  the  copyright  of  the  best  performance. 
There  cannot  be  a  stronger  instance  than  the  fate  of  Dryden's 
last  production,  the  Fables.  That  volume  was  published 
when  he  was  universally  admitted  to  be  the  chief  of  living 
English  poets.  It  contains  about  twelve  thousand  lines.  The 
versification  is  admirable  ;  the  narratives  and  descriptions  full 
of  life.  To  this  day  Palamon  and  Arcite,  Cymon  and  Iphi- 
genia,  Theodore  and  Honoria  are  the  delight  both  of  critics 
and  of  schoolboys.  The  collection  includes  Alexander's  Feast, 
the  noblest  ode  in  our  language.  For  the  copyright  Dryden 
received  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  less  than  in  our  days 
hag  sometimes  been  paid  for  two  articles  in  a  review.t  Noi 
does  the  bargain  seem  to  have  been  a  hard  one.  For  the 
book  went  off  slowly  ;  and  a  second  edition  was  not  required 
till  the  author  had  been  ten  years  in  his  grave.  By  writing 
for  the  theatre  it  was  possible  to  earn  a  much  larger  sum  with 
much  less  trouble.  Southern  made  seven  hundred  pounds  by 
one  play  .f  Otway  was  raised  from  beggary  to  temporary 
affluence  by  the  success  of  his  Don  Carlos.^  Shadwell  cleared 

*  Jeremy  Collier  has  censured  this  odious  practice  with  his  usual 
force  and  keenness. 

t  The  contract  will  be  found  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  edition  of 
Dryden. 

J  See  the  Life  of  Southern,  by  Shiels. 

§  See  Rochester's  Trial  of  the  Poets. 


316  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

a  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  by  a  single  representation  of  the 
Squire  of  Alsatia.*  The  consequence  was,  that  every  man 
who  had  to  live  by  his  wit  wrote  plays,  whether  he  had  any 
internal  vocation  to  write  plays  or  not.  It  was  thus  with  Dry- 
den.  As  a  satirist  he  has  rivalled  Juvenal.  As  a  didactic 
poet  he  perhaps  might,  with  care  and  meditation,  have  rivalled 
Lucretius.  Of  lyric  poets  he  is,  if  not  the  most  sublime,  the 
most  brilliant  and  spirit-strirring.  But  nature,  profuse  to  him 
of  many  rare  gifts,  had  denied  him  the  dramatic  faculty. 
Nevertheless  all  the  energies  of  his  best  years  were  wasted  on 
dramatic  composition.  He  had  too  much  judgment  not  to  be 
aware  that  in  the  power  of  exhibiting  character  by  means  of 
dialogue  he  was  deficient.  That  deficiency  he  did  his  best  to 
conceal,  sometimes  by  surprising  and  amusing  incidents,  •some- 
times by  stately  declamation,  sometimes  by  harmonious  num- 
bers, sometimes  by  ribaldry  but  too  well  suited  to  the  taste  of  a 
profane  and  licentious  pit.  Yet  he  never  obtained  any  theat- 
rical success  equal  to  that  which  rewarded  the  exertions  of 
some  men  far  inferior  to  him  in  general  powers.  He  thought 
himself  fortunate  if  he  cleared  a  hundred  guineas  by  a  play  ; 
a  scanty  remuneration,  yet  apparently  larger  than  he  could 
have  earned  in  any  other  way  by  the  same  quantity  of  labor.t 

The  recompense  which  the  wits  of  that  age  could  obtain 
from  the  public  was  so  small,  that  they  were  under  the  neces- 
sity of  eking  out  their  incomes  by  levying  contributions  on 
the  great.  Every  rich  and  good-natured  lord  was  pestered  by 
authors  with  a  mendicancy  so  importunate,  and  a  flattery  so 
abject,  as  may  in  our  time  seem  incredible.  The  patron  to 
whom  a  work  was  inscribed  was  expected  to  reward  the 
writer  with  a  purse  of  gold.  The  fee  paid  for  the  dedication 
of  a  book  was  often  much  larger  than  the  sum  which  any 
bookseller  would  give  for  the  copyright.  Books  were  there- 
fore often  printed  merely  that  they  might  be  dedicated.  This 
traffic  in  praise  completed  the  degradation  of  the  literary  char- 
acter. Adulation  pushed  to  the  verge,  sometimes  of  nonsense, 
and  sometimes  of  impiety,  was  not  thought  to  disgrace  a  poet. 
Independence,  veracity,  self-respect,  were  things  not  expected 
by  the  world  from  him.  In  truth,  he  was  in  morals  something 
between  a  pandar  and  a  beggar. 

To  the  other  vices  which  degraded  the  literary  character 

•  Some  Account  of  the  English  Stage, 
t  Life  of  Southern,  by  Shiels. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  317 

was  added,  towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Sec 
ond,  the  most  savage  intemperance  of  party  spirit.  The  wits, 
as  a  class,  had  been  impelled  by  their  old  hatred  of  Puritanism 
to  take  the  side  of  the  court,  and  had  been  found  useful  allies. 
Dryden,  in  particular,  had  done  good  service  to  the  govern- 
ment. His  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  the  greatest  satire  of 
modern  times,  had  amazed  the  town,  had  made  its  way  with 
unprecedented  rapidity  even  into  rural  districts,  and  had, 
wherever  it  appeared,  bitterly  annoyed  the  Exclusionists,  and 
raised  the  courage  of  the  Tories.  But  we  must  not,  in  the 
admiration  which  we  naturally  feel  for  noble  diction  and  versi- 
fication, forget  the  great  distinctions  of  good  and  evil.  The 
spirit  by  which  Dryden  and  several  of  his  compeers  were  at 
this  time  animated  against  the  Whigs  deserves  to  be  called 
fiendish.  The  servile  judges  and  sheriffs  of  those  evil  days 
could  not  shed  blood  so  fast  as  the  poets  cried  out  for  it.  Calls 
for  more  victims,  hideous  jests  on  hanging,  bitter  taunts  on 
those,  who,  having  stood  by  the  king  in  the  hour  of  danger, 
now  advised  him  to  deal  mercifully  and  generously  by  his  van- 
quished enemies,  were  publicly  recited  on  the  stage,  and,  that 
nothing  might  be  wanting  to  the  guilt  and  the  shame,  were  re- 
cited by  women,  who,  having  long  been  taught  to  discard  all 
modesty,  were  now  taught  to  discard  all  compassion.* 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  while  the  lighter  literature  of 
England  was  thus  becoming  a  nuisance  and  a  national  dis- 
grace, the  English  genius  was  effecting  in  science  a  revolution 
which  will,  to  the  end  of  time,  be  reckoned  among  the  highest 
achievements  of  the  human  intellect.  Bacon  had  sown  the 
good  seed  in  a  sluggish  soil  and  an  ungenial  season.  He  had 
not  expected  an  early  crop,  and  in  his  last  testament  had  sol- 
emnly bequeathed  his  fame  to  the  next  age.  During  a  whole 
generation  his  philosophy  had,  amidst  tumults,  wars,  and  pro- 
scriptions, been  slowly  ripening  in  a  few  well-constituted 
minds.  While  factions  were  struggling  for  dominion  over 
each  other,  a  small  body  of  sages  had  turned  away  with  benev- 
olent disdain  from  the  conflict,  and  had  devoted  themselves 
to  the  nobler  work  of  extending  the  dominion  of  man  over 
matter.  As  soon  as  tranquillity  was  restored,  these  teachers 
easily  found  attentive  audience.  For  the  discipline  through 

*  If  any  reader  thinks  my  expressions  too  severe,  I  would  advise 
him  to  read'  Dryden's  Epilogue  to  the  Duke  of  Guise,  and  to  observe 
that  it  was  spoken  by  a  woman. 
27* 


318  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

which  the  nation  had  passed  had  brought  the  public  mind  to  a 
temper  well  fitted  for  the  reception  of  the  Verulamian  doc- 
trine. The  civil  troubles  had  stimulated  the  faculties  of  the 
educated  classes,  and  had  called  forth  a  restless  activity  and 
an  insatiable  curiosity,  such  as  had  not  before  been  known 
among  us.  Yet  the  effect  of  those  troubles  had  been  that 
schemes  of  political  and  religious  reform  were  generally  re- 
garded with  suspicion  and  contempt.  During  twenty  years 
the  chief  employment  of  busy  and  ingenious  men  had  been  to 
frame  constitutions  with  first  magistrates,  without  first  magis- 
trates, with  hereditary  senates,  with  senates  appointed  by  lot, 
with  annual  senates,  with  perpetual  senates.  In  these  plans 
nothing  was  omitted.  All  the  detail,  all  the  nomenclature,  all 
the  ceremonial  of  the  imaginary  government  was  fully  set 
forth  —  Polemarchs  and  Phylarchs,  Tribes  and  Galaxies,  the 
Lord  Archon  and  the  Lord  Strategus.  Which  ballot  boxes 
were  to  be  green  and  which  red,  which  balls  were  to  be  of 
gold  and  which  of  silver,  which  magistrates  were  to  wear  hats 
and  which  black  velvet  caps  with  peaks,  how  the  mace  was  to 
be  carried  and  when  the  heralds  were  to  uncover,  these,  and 
a  hundred  more  such  trifles,  were  gravely  considered  and 
arranged  by  men  of  no  common  capacity  and  learning.*  But 
the  time  for  these  visions  had  gone  by;  and,  if  any  steadfast 
republican  still  continued  to  amuse  himself  with  them,  fear  of 
public  derision  and  of  a  criminal  information  generally  induced 
him  to  keep  his  fancies  to  himself.  It  was  now  unpopular 
and  unsafe  to  mutter  a  word  against  the  fundamental  laws  of 
the  monarchy :  but  daring  and  ingenious  men  might  indem- 
nify themselves  by  treating  with  disdain  what  had  lately  been 
considered  as  the  fundamental  laws  of  nature.  The  torrent 
which  had  been  dammed  up  in  one  channel  rushed  violently 
into  another.  The  revolutionary  spirit,  ceasing  to  operate  in 
politics,  began  to  exert  itself  with  unprecedented  vigor  and 
hardihood  in  every  department  of  physics.  The  year  1660, 
the  era  of  the  restoration  of  the  old  constitution,  is  also  the 
era  from  which  dates  the  ascendency  of  the  new  philosophy. 
In  that  year  the  Royal  Society,  destined  to  be  a  chief  agent  in 
a  long  series  of  glorious  and  salutary  reforms,  began  to  exist.t 
In  a  few  months  experimental  science  became  all  the  mode. 
The  transfusion  of  blood,  the  ponderation  of  air,  the  fixation 

*  See  particularly  Harrington's  Oceana. 
t  See  Sprat's  History  of  the  Royal  Society. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  319 

of  mercury,  succeeded  to  that  place  in  the  public  mind  which 
had  been  lately  occupied  by  the  controversies  of  the  Rota, 
Dreams  of  perfect  forms  of-government  made  way  for  dreams 
of  wings  with  which  men  were  to  fly  from  the  Tower  to  the 
Abbey,  and  of  double-keeled  ships  which  were  never  to  foun- 
der in  the  fiercest  storm.  All  classes  were  hurried  along  by 
the  prevailing  sentiment.  Cavalier  and  Roundhead,  Church 
man  and  Puritan  were  for  once  allied.  Divines,  jurists,  states- 
men, nobles,  princes,  swelled  the  triumph  of  the  Baconian 
philosophy.  Poets  sang  with  emulous  fervor  the  approach  of 
the  golden  age.  Cowley,  in  lines  weighty  with  thought  and 
resplendent  with  wit,  urged  the  chosen  seed  to  take  possession 
of  the  promised  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  that  land 
which  their  great  deliverer  and  lawgiver  had  seen  as  from  the 
summit  of  Pisgah,  but  had  not  been  permitted  to  enter.* 
Dryden,  with  more  zeal  than  knowledge,  joined  his  voice  to 
the  general  acclamation,  and  foretold  things  which  neither  he 
nor  any  body  else  understood.  The  Royal  Society,  he  pre- 
dicted, would  soon  lead  us  to  the  extreme  verge  of  the  globe, 
and  there  delight  us  with  a  better  view  of  the  moon.t  Two  able 
and  aspiring  prelates,  Ward,  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  and  Wilkins, 
Bishop  of  Chester,  were  conspicuous  among  the  leaders  of  the 
movement.  Its  history  was  eloquently  written  by  a  younger 
divine,  who  was  rising  to  high  distinction  in  his  profession, 
Thomas  Sprat,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Rochester.  Both  Chief 
Justice  Hale  and  Lord  Keeper  Guildford  stole  some  hours  from 
the  business  of  their  courts  to  write  on  hydrostatics.  Indeed 
it  was  under  the  immediate  directions  of  Guildford  that  the  first 
barometers  ever  exposed  to  sate  in  London  were  constructed.^: 
Chemistry  divided,  for  a  time,  with  wine  and  love,  with  the 
stage  and  the  gaming-table,  with  the  intrigues  of  a  courtier 
and  the  intrigues  of  a  demagogue,  the  attention  of  the  fickle 
Buckingham.  Rupert  has  the  credit  of  having  invented  mezzo- 
tinto,  and  from,  him  is  named  that  curious  bubble  of  glass  which 
has  long  amused  children  and  puzzed  philosophers.  Charles 
himself  had  a  laboratory  at  Whitehall,  and  was  far  more  active 

*  Cowley's  Ode  to  the  Royal  Society. 

t  "Then  we  upon  the  globe's  last  verge  shall  go, 

And  view  the  ocean  leaning  on  the  sky ; 
From  thence  our  rolling  neighbors  we  shall  know. 
And  on  the  lunar  world  securely  pry." 

Annus  Mirabilis,  164. 
North's  Life  of  Guildford. 


320  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  attentive  there  than  at  the  council  board.  It  was  almoa 
necessary  to  the  character  of  a  fine  gentleman  to  have  some* 
thing  to  say  about  air-pumps  and  telescopes ;  and  even  fine 
ladies,  now  and  then,  thought  it  becoming  to  affect  a  taste  for 
science,  went  in  coaches  and  six  to  visit  the  Gresham  curiosi- 
ties, and  broke  forth  into  cries  of  delight  at  finding  that  a 
magnet  really  attracted  a  needle,  and  that  a  microscope  really 
made  a  fly  look  as  large  as  a  sparrow.* 

In  this,  as  in  every  great  stir  of  the  human  mind,  there 
was  doubtless  something  which  might  well  move  a  smile.  It 
is  the  universal  law  that  whatever  pursuit,  whatever  doctrine, 
becomes  fashionable,  shall  lose  a  portion  of  that  dignity  which 
it  had  possessed  while  it  was  confined  to  a  small  but  earnest 
minority,  and  was  loved  for  its  own  sake  alone.  It  is  true 
that  the  follies  of  some  persons  who,  without  any  real  aptitude 
for  science,  professed  a  passion  for  it,  furnished  matter  of  con- 
temptuous mirth  to  a  few  malignant  satirists  who  belonged  to  the 
preceding  generation,  and  were  not  disposed  to  unlearn  the 
lore  of  their  youth.t  But  it  is  not  less  true  that  the  great  work 
of  interpreting  nature  was  performed  by  the  English  of  that 
age  as  it  had  never  before  been  performed  in  any  age  by  any 
nation.  The  spirit  of  Francis  Bacon  was  abroad,  a  spiri* 
admirably  compounded  of  audacity  and  sobriety.  There  w*» 
a  strong  persuasion  that  the  whole  world  was  full  of  secret, 
of  high  moment  to  the  happiness  of  man,  and  that  man  had 
by  his  Maker,  been  intrusted  with  the  key  which,  rightly 
used,  would  give  access  to  them.  There  was  at  the  same 
time  a  conviction  that  in  physics  it  was  impossible  to  arrive 
at  the  knowledge  of  general  laws  except  by  the  careful 
observation  of  particular  facts.  Deeply  impressed  with  these 
great  truths,  the  professors  of  the  new  philosophy  applied 
themselves  to  their  task,  and,  before  a  quarter  of  a  century 
had  expired,  they  had  given  ample  earnest  of  what  has 
since  been  achieved.  Already  a  reform  of  agriculture  had 
been  commenced.  New  vegetables  were  cultivated.  New 
implements  of  husbandry  were  employed.  New  manures 
were  applied  to  the  soil.J  Evelyn  had,  under  the  formal 

*  Pepys's  Diary,  May  30,  1667. 

t  Butler  was,  I  think,  the  only  man  of  real  genius  who,  between 
the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution,  showed  a  bitter  enmity  to  the 
new  philosophy.  Sec  the  Satire  on  the  Royal  Society,  and  the  Ele- 
phant in  the  Moon. 

J  The  eagerness  wkh  which  the  agriculturists  of  that  age  tried 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND  321 

sanction  of  the  Royal  Society,  given  instruction  to  his  country- 
men in  planting.  Temple,  in  his  intervals  of  leisure,  had 
tried  many  experiments  in  horticulture,  and  had  proved  that 
many  delicate  fruits,  the  natives  of  more  favored  climates, 
might,  with  the  Jielp  of  art,  be  grown  on  English  ground. 
Medicine  which,  in  France,  was  stiU  in  abject  bondage,  and 
afforded  an  inexhaustible  subject  of  just  ridicule  to  Moliere, 
had  in  England  become  an  experimental  and  progressive 
science,  and  every  day  made  some  new  advance,  in  defiance 
of  Hippocrates  and  Galen.  The  attention  of  speculative 
men  had  been,  for  the  ( first  time,  directed  to  the  important 
subject  of  sanitary  police.  The  great  plague  of  1665  induced 
them  to  consider  with  care  the  defective  architecture,  drain- 
ing, and  ventilation  of  the  capital.  The  great  fire  of  1666 
afforded  an  opportunity  for  effecting  extensive  improvements. 
The  whole  matter  was  diligently  examined  by  the  Royal 
Society  ;  and  to  the  suggestions  of  that  body  must  be  partly 
attributed  the  changes  which, "  though  far  short  of  what  the 
public  welfare  required,  yet  made  a  wide  difference  between 
the  new  and  the  old  London,  and  probably  put  a  final  close 
to  the  ravages  of  pestilence  in  our  country.*  At  the  same 
time  one  of  the  founders  of  the  society,  Sir  William  Petty, 
created  the  science  of  political  arithmetic,  the  humble  but 
indispensable  handmaid  of  political  philosophy.  To  that 
period  belong  the  chemical  discoveries  of  Boyle,  and  the 
first  botanical  researches  of  Sloane.  One  after  another, 
phantoms  which  had  haunted  the  world  through  ages  of 
darkness  fled  before  the  light.  Astrology  and  alchymy 
became  jests.  Soon  there  was  scarcely  a  county  in  which 
some  of  the  quorum  did  not  smile  contemptuously  when  an 
old  woman  was  brought  before  them  for  riding  on  broomsticks 
or  giving  cattle  the  murrain.  But  it  was  in  those  noblest  and 
most  arduous  departments  of  knowledge  in  which  induction 
and  mathematical  demonstration  cooperate  for  the  discovery 
of  truth,,  that  the  English  genius  won  in  that  age  the  most 
memorable  triumphs.  John  Wallis  placed  the  whole  system 
of  statics  on  a  new  foundation.  Edmund  Halley  inves- 
tigated the  properties  of  the  atmosphere,  the  ebb  and  flow 
of  the  sea,  the  laws  of  magnetism,  and  the  course  of  the 

experiments    and    introduced  improvements,   is  well   described  by 
Aubrey,  Natural  History  of  Wiltshire,  1685. 
*  Sprat's  History  of  the  Royal  Society. 


322  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

comets  ;  nor  did  he  shrink  from  toil,  peril,  and  exile  in  the 
cause  of  science.  While  he,  on  the  rock  of  St.  Helena, 
mapped  the  constellations  of  the  southern  hemisphere,  our 
national  observatory  was  rising  at  Greenwich ;  and  John 
Flamsteed,  the  first  astronomer  royal,  was  commencing  that 
long  series  of  observations  which  is  never  mentioned  without 
cespect  and  gratitude  in  any  part  of  the  globe.  But  the  glory 
of  these  men,  eminent  as  they  were,  is  cast  into  the  shade  by 
tne  transcendent  lustre  of  one  immortal  name.  In  Isaac 
Newton  two  kinds  of  intellectual  power,  which  have  little  in 
common,  and  which  are  not  often  fgund  together  in  a  very 
high  degree  of  vigor,  but  which  nevertheless  are  equally 
necessary  in  the  most  sublime  departments  of  natural  philos- 
ophy, were  united  as  they  have  never  been  united  before  or 
since.  There  may  have  been  minds  as  happily  constituted  as 
his  for  the  cultivation  of  pure  mathematical  science  ;  there 
may  have  been  minds  as  happily  constituted  for  the  cultivation 
of  science  purely  experimental ;  but  in  no  other  mind  have 
the  demonstrative  faculty  and  the  inductive  faculty  coexisted 
in  such  supreme  excellence  and  perfect  harmony.  Perhaps  in 
an  age  of  Scotists  and  Thomists  even  his  intellect  might  have 
run  to  waste,  as  many  intellects  ran  to  wastet  which  were 
inferior  only  to  his.  Happily  the  spirit  of  the  age  on  which 
his  lot  was  cast  gave  the  right  direction  to  his  mind  ;  and  his 
mind  reacted  with  tenfold  force  on  the  spirit  of  the  age.  In 
the  year  1685  his  fame,  though  splendid,  was  only  dawning  ; 
but  his  genius  was  in  the  meridian.  His  great  work,  that 
work  which  effected  a  revolution  in  the  most  important  prov- 
inces of  natural  philosophy,  had  been  completed,  but  was 
not  yet  published,  and  was  just  about  to  be  submitted  to  the 
consideration  of  the  Royal  Society. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  explain  why  the  nation  which  was  so 
far  before  its  neighbors  in  science  should  in  art  have  been  far 
behind  them  all.  Yet  such  was  the  fact.  It  is  true  that  in  archi 
tecture,  an  art  which  is  half  a  science,  an  art  in  which  none 
but  a  geometrician  can  excel,  an  art  which  has  no  standard 
of  grace  but  what  is  directly  or  indirectly  dependent  on 
utility,  an  art  of  which  the  creations  derive  a  part,  at  least, 
of  their  majesty  from  mere  bulk,  our  country  could  boast 
of  one  truly  great  man,  Christopher  Wren  ;  and  the  fire 
which  laid  London  in  ruins  had  given  him  an  opportunity, 
unprecedented  in  modern  history,  of  displaying  his  powers. 
The  austere  beauty  of  the  Athenian  portico,  the  gloomy 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  323 

sublimity  of  the  Gothic  arcade,  he  was,  like  almost  all  his 
contemporaries,  incapable  of  emulating,  and  perhaps  inca- 
pable of  appreciating ;  but  no  man,  born  on  our  side  of  the 
Alps,  hals  imitated  with  so  much  success  the  magnificence  of 
the  palace-like  churches  of  Italy.  Even  the  superb  Lewis 
has  left  to  posterity  no  work  which  can  bear  a  comparison 
with  Saint  Paul's.  But  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second  there  was  not  a  single  English  painter  or 
statuary  whose  name  is  now  remembered.  This  sterility  is 
somewhat  mysterious  ;  for  painters  and  statuaries  were  by  no 
means  a  despised  or  an  ill-paid  class.  Their  social  position 
was  at  least  as  high  as  at  present.  Their  gains,  when  com- 
pared with  the  wealth  of  the  nation  and  with  the  remuneration 
of  other  descriptions  of  intellectual  labor,  were  even  larger 
than  at  present.  Indeed  the  munificent  patronage  which  was 
extended  to  artists  drew  them  to  our  shores  in  multitudes. 
Lely,  who  has  preserved  to  us  the  rich  curls,  the  full  lips,  and 
the  languishing  eyes  of  the  frail  beauties  celebrated  by  Ham- 
ilton, was  a  Westphalian.  He  had  died  in  1680,  having  long 
lived  splendidly,  having  received  the  honor  of  knighthood, 
and  having  accumulated  a  good  estate  out  of  the  fruits  of  his 
skill.  His  noble  collection  of  drawings  and  pictures  was, 
after  his  decease,  exhibited  by  the  royal  permission  in  the 
Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall,  and  sold  by  auction  for  the 
almost  incredible-  sum  of  twenty-six  thousand  pounds,  a 
sum  which  bore  a  greater  proportion  to  the  fortunes  of  the 
rich  men  of  that  day  than  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  would 
bear  to  the  fortunes  of  the  rich  men  of  our  time.*  .Lely  was 
succeeded  by  his  countryman  Godfrey  Kneller,  who  was  made 
first  a  knight  and  then  a  baronet,  and  who,  after  keeping  up 
a  sumptuous  establishment,  and  after  losing  much  money  by 
unlucky  speculations,  was  still  able  to  bequeath  a  large  fortune 
to  his  family.  The  two  Vandeveldes,  natives  of  Holland,  had 
been  induced  by  English  liberality  to  settle  here,  and  had 
produced  for  the  king  and  his  nobles  some  of  the  finest  sea 
pieces  in  the  world.  Another  Dutchman,  Simon  Varelst, 
painted  glorious  sunflowers  and  tulips  for  prices  such  as  had 
never  before  been  known.  Verrio,  a  Neapolitan,  covered 
ceilings  and  staircases  with  Gorgons  and  Muses,  Nymphs  and 

*  Walpole's  Anecdotes  of  Painting.     London   Gazette,  May  31, 
683.    North's  Life  of  Guildford. 


324  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Satyis,  Virtws  and  Vices,  Gods  quaffing  nectar,  and  laurelled 
princes  riding  in  triumph.  The  income  which  he  derived 
from  his  performances  enabled  him  to  keep  one  of  the  most 
expensive  tables  in  England.  For  his  pieces  at  Windsor 
alone  he  received  seven  thousand  pounds,  a  sum  then  suf- 
ficient to  make  a  gentleman  of  moderate  wishes  perfectly 
easy  for  life,  a  sum  greatly  exceeding  all  that  Dryden,  during 
a  literary  life  of  forty  years,  obtained  from  the  booksellers.* 
Verrio's  chief  assistant  and  successor,  Lewis  Laguerre,  came 
from  France.  The  two  most  celebrated  sculptors  of  that  day 
were  also  foreigners.  Gibber,  whose  pathetic  emblems  of 
Fury  and  Melancholy  still  adorn  Bedlam,  was  a  Dane.  Gib- 
bons, to  whose  graceful  fancy  and  delicate  touch  many  of  our 
palaces,  colleges,  and  churches  owe  their  finest  decorations, 
was  a  Dutchman.  Even  the  designs  for  the  coin  were  made 
by  French  medallists.  Indeed,  it  was  not  till  the  reign  of 
George  the  Second  that  our  country  could  glory  in  a  great 
painter ;  and  George  the  Third  was  on  the  throne  before  she 
had  reason  to  be  proud  of  any  of  her  sculptors. 

It  is  time  that  this  description  of  the  England  which  Charles 
the  Second  governed  should  draw  to  a  close.  Yet  one  sub- 
ject of  the  highest  moment  still  remains  untouched.  Nothing 
has  as  yet  been  said  of  the  great  body  of  the  people,  of  those 
who  held  the  ploughs,  who  tended  the  oxen,  who  toiled  at  the 
looms  of  Norwich,  and  squared  the  Portland  stone  for  Saint 
Paul's.  Nor  can  very  much  be  said.  The  most  numerous 
class  is  precisely  the  class  respecting  which  we  have  the  most 
meagre  information.  In  those  times  philanthropists  did  not 
yet  regard  it  as  a  sacred  duty,  nor  had  demagogues  yet  found 
it  a  lucrative  trade,  to  expatiate  on  the  distress  of  the  laborer. 
History  was  too  much  occupied  with  courts  and  camps  to 
spare  a  line  for  the  hut  of  the  peasant  or  for  the  garret  of  the 
mechanic.  The  press  now  often  sends  forth  in  a  day  a 
greater  quantity  of  discussion  and  declamation  about  the 
condition  of  the  working  man  than  was  published  during  the 
twenty-eight  years  which  elapsed  between  the  Restoration  and 
the  Revolution.  But  it  would  be  a  great  error  to  infer  from 
the  increase  of  complaint  that  there  has  been  any  increase 
of  misery. 

The  great  criterion  of  the  state  of  the  common  people  is 

*  The  great  prices  paid  to  Varelst  and  Verrio  are  mentioned  in 
Walpole's  Anecdotes  of  Painting. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 

the  amount  of  their  wages ;  and,  as  four  fifths  of  the  common 
people  were,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  employed  in  agricul- 
ture, it  is  especially  important  to  ascertain  what  were  then  the 
wages  of  agricultural  industry.  On  this  subject  we  have  the 
means  of  arriving  at  conclusions  sufficiently  exact  for  our 
purpose. 

Sir  William  Petty,  whose  mere  assertion  carries  great 
weight,  informs  us  that  a  laborer  was  by  no  means  in  the 
lowest  state  who  received  for  a  day's  work  fourpence  with 
food,  or  eightpence  without  food.  Four  shillings  a  week, 
therefore,  were,  according  to  Petty's  calculation,  fair  agricul- 
tural wages.* 

That  this  calculation  was  not  remote  from  the  truth,  we 
have  abundant  proof.  About  the  beginning  of  the  year  1685, 
the  justices  of  Warwickshire,  in  the  exercise  of  a  power  in- 
trusted to  them  by  an  act  of  Elizabeth,  fixed,  at  their  quarter 
sessions,  a  scale  of  wages  for  their  county,  and  notified  that 
every  employer  who  gave  more  than  the  authorized  sum,  and 
every  working  man  who  received  more,  would  be  liable  to  pun- 
ishment. The  wages  of  the  common  agricultural  laborer, 
from  March  to  September,  they  fixed  at  the  precise  sum  men- 
tioned by  Petty,  namely,  four  shillings  a  week  without  food. 
From  September  to  March  the  wages  were  to  be  only  three 
and  sixpence  a  week.t 

But  in  that  age,  as  in  ours,  the  earnings  of  the  peasant  were 
very  different  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom.  The  wages 
of  Warwickshire  were  probably  about  the  average,  and  those 
of  the  counties  near  the  Scottish  border  below  it.  But  there 
were  more  favored  districts.  In  the  same  year,  1685,  a  gen- 
tleman of  Devonshire,  named  Richard  Dunning,  published  a 
small  tract,  in  which  he  described  the  condition  of  the  poor 
of  that  county.  That  he  understood  his  subject  well  it  is  im- 
possible to  doubt ;  for  a  few  months  later  his  work  was  re- 
printed, and  was,  by  the  magistrates  assembled  in  quarter  ses- 
sions at  Exeter,  strongly  recommended  to  the  attention  of  all 
parochial  officers.  According  to  him,  the  wages'  of  the  Dev- 
onshire peasant  were,  without  food,  about  five  shillings  a 
week.f 

*  Petty's  Political  Arithmetic. 

t  Stat.  5  Eliz.  c  4.    Archaeologia,  vol.  xi. 

j  Plain  and  Easy  Method  showing  how  the  Office  of  Overseer  of 
the  Poor  may  be  managed,  by  Richard  Dunning.  1st  edition,  168o, 
2d  edition,  1686. 

VOL.  i.  28 


326  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

Still  better  was  the  condition  of  the  laborer  in  the  aeighboi 
hood  of  Bury  St.  Edmund's.     The  magistrates  of  Suffolk  rm  u 
there  in  the  spring  of  1682  to  fix  a  rate  of  wages,  and  resolved 
that,  where  the  laborer  was  not  boarded,  he  should  have  five 
shillings  a  week  in  winter,  and  six  in  summer.* 

In  1661  the  justices  at  Chelmsford  had  fixed  the  wages  of 
the  Essex  laborer,  who  was  not  boarded,  at  six  shillings  in 
winter  and  seven  in  summer.  This  seems  to  have  been  the 
highest  remuneration  given  in  the  kingdom  for  agricultural 
labor  between  the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution ;  and  it  is 
to  be  observed  that,  in  the  year  in  which  this  order  was  made, 
the  necessaries  of  life  were  immoderately  dear.  Wheat  was 
at  seventy  shillings  the  quarter,  which  would  even  now  be 
considered  as  almost  a  famine  price.t 

These  facts  are  in  perfect  accordance  with  another  fact 
which  seems  to  deserve  consideration.  It  is  evident  that,  in  a 
country  where  no  man  can  be  compelled  to  become  a  soldier, 
the  ranks  of  an  army  cannot  be  filled  if  the  government  offers 
much  less  than  the  wages  of  common  rustic  labor.  At  pres- 
ent the  pay  and  beer  money  of  a  private  in  a  regiment  of  the 
line  amount  to  seven  shillings  and  sevenpence  a  week.  This 
stipend,  coupled  with  the  hope  of  a  pension,  does  not  attract 
the  Engh'sh  youth  in  sufficient  numbers ;  and  it  is  found  ne- 
cessary to  supply  the  deficiency  by  enlisting  largely  from 
among  the  poorer  population  of  Munster  and  ConnaughL  The 
pay  of  the  private  foot  soldier  in  1685  was  only  four  shillings 
and  eightpence  a  week ;  yet  it  is  certain  that  the  government 
in  that  year  found  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  many  thousands 
of  English  recruits  at  very  short  notice.  The  pay  of  the  pri- 
vate foot  soldier  in  the  army  of  the  Commonwealth  had  been 
seven  shillings  a  week,  that  is  to  say,  as  much  as  a  corporal 
received  under  Charles  the  Second ;  J  and  seven  shillings  a 
week  had  been  found  sufficient  to  fill  the  ranks  with  men  de 
cidedly  superior  to  the  generality  of  the  people.  On  the 
whole,  therefore,  it  seems  reasonable  to  conclude  that,  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  ordinary  wages  of  the  peas- 
ant did  not  exceed  four  shillings  a  week ;  but  that,  in  some 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  five  shillings,  six  shillings,  and,  during 
the  summer  months,  even  seven  shillings,-  were  paid.  At 

•  Cullum's  History  of  Hawsted. 
+  Ruggles  on  the  Poor. 

£  See,  in  Thurloe's  State  Papery  the  memorandum  of  the  Dutch 
Deputies,  dated  August  -&,  1653. 


HISTOHX    OF    ENGLAND.  327 

present  a  district  where  a  laboring  man  earns  only  seven  shil- 
lings a  week  is  thought  to  be  in  a  state  shocking  to  humanity. 
The  average  is  very  much  higher ;  and,  in  prosperous  coun- 
ties, the  weekly  wages  of  husbandmen  amount  to  twelve,  four- 
teen, and  even  sixteen  shillings. 

The  remuneration  of  workmen  employed  in  manufactures 
has  always  been  higher  than  that  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil.  In 
the  year  1680  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  remarked 
that  the  high  wages  paid  in  this  country  made  it  impossible  for 
our  textures  to  maintain  a  competition  with  the  produce  of  the 
fndian  looms.  An  English  mechanic,  he  said,  instead  of  slav- 
ing like  a  native  of  Bengal  for  a  piece  of  copper,  exacted  a 
•hilling  a  day.*  Other  evidence  is  extant,  which  proves  that 
ft  shilling  a  day  was  the  pay  to  which  the  English  manufac- 
turer then  thought  himself  entitled,  but  that  he  was  often  forced 
to  work  for  less.  The  common  people  of  that  age  were  not 
m  the  habit  of  meeting  for  public  discussion,  of  haranguing, 
or  of  petitioning  parliament.  No  newspaper  pleaded  their 
cause.  It  was  in  rude  rhyme  that  their  love  and  hatred,  their 
exultation  and  their  distress,  found  utterance.  A  grej.t  part  of 
their  history  is  to  be  learned  only  from  their  ballads.  One  of 
the  most  remarkable  of  the  popular  lays  chanted  about  the 
streets  of  Norwich  and  Leeds  in  the  time  of  Charles  the 
Second  may  still  be  read  on  the  original  broadside.  It  is  the 
vehement  and  bitter  cry  of  labor  against  capital.  It  describes 
the  good  old  times  when,  every  artisan  employed  in  the  wool- 
len manufacture  lived  as  well  as  a  farmer.  But  those  times 
were  past.  Sixpence  a  day  now  was  all  that  could  be  earned 
by  hard  labor  at  the  loom.  If  the  ppor  complained  that  they 
could  not  live  on  such  a  pittance,  they  were  told  that  they 
were  free  to  take  it  or  leave  it.  For  so  miserable  a  recom- 
pense were  the  producers  of  wealth  compelled  to  toil,  rising 
early  and  lying  down  late,  while  the  master  clothier,  eating, 
sleeping,  and  idling,  became  rich  by  their  exertions.  A  shil- 
ling a  day,  the  poet  declares,  is  what  the  weaver  would  have, 
if  justice  were  done.t  We  may  therefore  conclude  that,  in 
the  generation  which  preceded  the  revolution,  a  workman 

*  The  orator  was  Mr.  John.  Basset,  member  for  Barnstaple.  See 
Smith's  Memoirs  of  Wool,  chapter  Ixviii. 

t  This  ballad  is  in  the  British  Museum.  The  precise  year  is  not 
given;  but  the  imprimatur  of  Roger  Lestrange  fixes  the  date  suffi- 
ciently for  my  purpose.  I  will  quote  some  of  the  lines.  The  master 
Clothier  is  introduced  speaking  as  follows :  — 


328  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

employed  in  the  great  staple  manufacture  of  England  thought 
himself  fairly  paid  if  he  gained  six  shillings  a  week. 

It  may  here  be  noticed  that  the  practice  of  setting  children 
prematurely  to  work,  a  practice  which  the  state,  the  legitimate 
protector  of  those  who  cannot  protect  themselves,  has,  in  our 
time,  wisely  and  humanely  interdicted,  prevailed  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  to  an  extent  which,  when  compared  with  the 
extent  of  the  manufacturing  system,  seems  almost  incredible. 
At  Norwich,  the  chief  seat  of  the  clothing  trade,  a  little  crea- 
ture of  six  years  old  was  thought  fit  for  labor.  Several 
writers  of  that  time,  and  among  them  some  who  were  consid- 
ered as  eminently  benevolent,  mention,  with  exultation,  the 
fact,  that  in  that  single  city  boys  and  girls  of  tender  age  cre- 
ated wealth  exceeding  what  was  necessary  for  their  own  sub- 
sistence by  twelve  thousand  pounds  a  year.*  The  more  care- 
fully we  examine  the  history  of  the  past,  the  more  reason  shall 
we  find  to  dissent  from  those  who  imagine  that  our  age  has 
been  fruitful  of  new  social  evils.  The  truth  is,  that  the  evils 
are,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  old.  That  which  is  new  is  the 
intelligence  which  discerns  and  the  humanity  which  remedies 
them. 

When  we  pass  from  the  weavers  of  cloth  to  a  different  class 
of  artisans,  our  inquiries  will  still  lead  us  to  nearly  the  same 
conclusions.  During  several  generations,  the  Commissioners 
of  Greenwich  Hospital  have  kept  a  register  of  the  wages  paid 
to  different  classes  of  workmen  who  have  been  employed  in 

"  In  former  ages  we  used  to  give, 
So  that  our  workfolks  like  farmers  did  live ; 
But  the  times  are  changed,  we  will  make  them  know. 

***** 

We  will  make  them  to  work  hard  for  sixpence  a  day, 

Though  a  shilling  they  deserve  if  they  had  their  just  pay; 

If  at  all  they  murmur  and  say,  'tis  too  small, 

We  bid  them  choose  whether  they'll  work  at  all. 

And  thus  we  do  gain  all  our  wealth  and  estate, 

By  many  poor  men  that  work  early  and  late. 

Then  hey  for  the  clothing  trade  !     It  goes  on  brave  • 

We  scorn  for  to  toyl  and  moyl,  nor  yet  to  slave. 

Our  workmen  do  work  hard,  but  we  live  at  ease, 

We  go  when  we  will,  and  we  come  when  we  please." 

*  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England ;  Potty's  Political  Arithmetic, 
Chapter  viii. ;  Dunning's  Plain  and  Easy  Method ;  Firmin's  Proposi- 
tion for  the  Employing  of  the  Poor.  It  ought  to  be  observed  that 
J"nnin  was  an  eminent  philanthropist. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  329 

.he  repairs  of  the  building.  From  this  valuable  record  it  ap- 
pears that,  in  the  course  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  years,  the 
daily  earnings  of  the  bricklayer  have  risen  from  half  a  crown 
to  four  and  tenpence,  those  of  the  mason  from  half  a  crown 
to  five  and  threepence,  those  of  the  carpenter  from  half  a 
crown  to  five  and  fivepence,  and  those  of  the  plumber  from 
three  shillings  to  five  and  sixpence. 

It  seems  clear,  therefore,  that  the  wages  of  labor,  estimated 
in  money,  were,  in  1685,  not  more  than  half  of  what  they  now 
are  ;  and  there  were  few  articles  important  to  the  working  man 
of  which  the  price  was  not,  in  1685,  more  than  half  of  what 
it  now  is.  Beer  was  undoubtedly  much  cheaper  in  that  age 
than  at  present.  Meat  was  also  cheaper,  but  was  still  so  dear 
that  there  were  hundreds  of  thousands  of  families  who  scarcely 
Knew  the  taste  of  it.*  In  the  cost  of  wheat  there  has  been 
very  little  change.  The  average  price  of  the  quarter,  during 
the  last  twelve  years  of  Charles  the  Second,  was  fifty  shillings. 
Bread,  therefore,  such  as  is  now  given  to  the  inmates  of  a 
workhouse,  was  then  seldom  seen,  even  on  the  trencher  of  a 
yeoman  or  of  a  shopkeeper.  The  great  majority  of  the  na- 
tion lived  almost  entirely  on  rye,  barley,  and  oats. 

The  produce  of  tropical  countries,  the  produce  of  the 
mines,  the  produce  of  machinery,  was  positively  dearer  than 
at  present.  Among  the  commodities  for  which  the  laborer 
would  have  had  to  pay  higher  in  1685  than  his  posterity  pay 
in  1848,  were  sugar,  salt,  coals,  candles,  soap,  shoes,  stock- 
ings, and  generally  all  articles  of  clothing  and  all  articles  of 
bedding.  It  may  be  added,  that  the  old  coats  and  blankets 
would  have  been,  not  only  more  costly,  but  less  serviceable 
than  the  modern  fabrics. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  those  laborers  who  were  able 
to  maintain  themselves  and 'their  families  by  means  of  wages, 
were  not  the  most  necessitous  members  of  the  community. 
Beneath  them  lay  a  large  class  which  could  not  subsist  with- 
out some  aid  from  the  parish.  There  can  hardly  be  a  more 
important  test  of  the  condition  of  the  common  people  than 
the  ratio  which  this  class  bears  to  the  whole  society.  At 

*  King  in  his  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions  roughly  estimated 
the  common  people  of  England  at  880,000  families.  Of  these  fami- 
lies 440,000,  according  to  him,  ate  animal  food  twice  a  week.  The 
remaining  44  \000  ate  it  not  at  all,  or  at  most  not  oftener  than  once 
a  week. 

28* 


330  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

present  the  men,  women,  and  children  who  receive  relief  are 
in  bad  years,  one  tenth  of  the  inhabitants  of  England,  and 
in  good  years,  one  thirteenth.  Gregory  King  estimated  them 
in  his  time  at  more  than  a  fifth  ;  and  this  estimate,  which  all 
our  respect  for  his  authority  will  scarcely  prevent  us  from 
calling  extravagant,  was  pronounced  by  Davenant  eminently 
judicious. 

We  are  not  quite  without  the  means  of  forming  an  esti- 
mate for  ourselves.  The  poor  rate  was  undoubtedly  the 
heaviest  tax  borne  by  our  ancestors  in  those  days.  It  was 
computed,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  at  near  seven 
hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year,  much  more  than  the  prod- 
uce either  of  the  excise  or  of  the  customs,  and  little  less 
than  half  the  entire  revenue  of  the  crown.  The  poor  rate 
went  on  increasing  rapidly,  and  appears  to  have  risen  in  a 
short  time  to  between  eight  and  nine  hundred  thousand  a 
year,  that  is  to  say,  to  one  sixth  of  what  it  now  is.  The 
population  was  then  less  than  a  third  of  what  it  now  is.  The 
minimum  of  wages,  estimated  in  money,  was  half  of  what  it 
now  is ;  and  we  can  therefore  hardly  suppose  that  the  aver- 
age allowance  made  to  a  pauper  can  have  been  more  than 
half  of  what  it  now  is.  It  seems  to  follow  that  the  propor- 
tion of  the  English  people  which  received  parochial  relief 
then  must  have  been  larger  than  the  proportion  which  re- 
ceives relief  now.  It  is  good  to  speak  on  such  questions 
with  diffidence ;  but  it  has  certainly  never  yet  been  proved 
that  pauperism  was  a  less  heavy  burden  or  a  less  serious 
social  evil  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, than  it  has  been  in  our  own  time.* 

In  one  respect  it  must  be  admitted  that  th,e  progress  of 

*  Fourteenth.  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commissioners,  Appendix 
B,  No.  2,  Appendix  C,  No.  1,  1848.  Of  the  two  estimates  of  the 
poor  rate  mentioned  in  the  text  one  was  formed  by  Arthur  Moore,  the 
other,  some  years  later,  by  Richard  Dunning.  Moore's  "estimate  will 
be  found  in  Davenant' s  Essay  on  Ways  and  Means  ;  Dunning's  in  Sir 
Frederic  Eden's  valuable  work  on  the  poor.  King  and  Davenant 
estimate  the  paupers  and  beggars  in  1696  at  the  incredible  number  of 
1,330,000  out  of  a  population  of  5,500,000.  In  1846  the  number  of 
persons  who  received  relief  was  only  1,332,089,  out  of  a  population 
of  about  17,000,000. 

I  would  advise  the  reader  to  consult  De  Foe's  pamphlet  entitled 
•'  Giving  Alms  no  Charity,"  and  the  Greenwich  tables  which  will  be 
Sound  in  Mr.  McCulloch's  Commercial  Dictionary  under  the  head 
Prices. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  331 

<j:vilization  has-  diminished  the  physical  comforts  of  a  por- 
"tion  of  the  poorest  class.  It  has  already  been  mentioned 
that,  before  the  Revolution,  many  thousands  of  square  miles, 
now  enclosed  and  cultivated,  were  marsh,  forest,  and  heath. 
Of  this  wild  land  much  was,  by  law,  common,  and  much 
of  what  was  not  common  by  law  was  worth  so  little  that  the 
proprietors  suffered  it  to  be  common  in  fact.  In  such  a 
tract,  squatters  and  trespassers  were  tolerated  to  an  extent 
now  unknown.  The  peasant  who  dwelt  there  could,  at  little 
or  no  charge,  procure  occasionally  some  palatable  addition 
to  his  hard  fare,  and  provide  himself  with  fuel  for  the  winter. 
He  kept  a  flock  of  geese  on  what  is  now  an  orchard  rich  with 
apple  blossoms.  He  snared  wild  fowl  on  the  fen  which  has 
long  since  been  drained  and  divided  into  cornfields  and  tur- 
nip-fields. He  cut  turf  among  the  furze-bushes  on  the  moor 
which  is  now  a  mead  w  bright  with  clover,  and  renowned  for 
butter  and  cheese.  The  progress  of  agriculture  and  the  in- 
crease of  population  necessarily  deprived  him  of  these  priv- 
ileges. But  against  this  disadvantage  a  long  list  of  advantages 
is  to  be  set  off.  Of  the  blessings  which  civilization  and  phi- 
losophy bring  with  them,  a  large  proportion  is  common  to  all 
ranks,  and  would,  if  withdrawn,  be  missed  as  painfully  by 
the  laborer  as  by  the  peer.  The  market  place  which  the 
rustic  can  now  reach  with  his  cart  in  an  hour,  was,  a  hundred 
and  sixty  years  ago,  a  day's  journey  from  him.  The  street 
which  now  affords  to  the  artisan,  during  the  whole  night,  a 
secure,  a  convenient,  and  a  brilliantly  lighted  walk,  was,  a 
hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  so  dark  after  sunset  that  he 
would  not  have  been  able  to  see  his  hand,  so  ill  paved  that 
he  would  have  run  constant  risk  of  breaking  his  neck,  and 
so  ill  watched  that  he  would  have  been  in  imminent  danger 
of  being  knocked  down  and  plundered  of  his  small  earnings. 
Every  bricklayer  who  falls  from  a  scaffold,  every  sweeper  of 
a  crossing  who  is  run  over  by  a  carriage,  now  may  have  his 
wounds  dressed  and  his  limbs  set  with  a  skill  such  as,  a  hun- 
dred and  sixty  years  ago,  all  the  wealth  of  a  great  lord  like 
Ormond,  or  of  a  merchant  prince  like  Clayton,  could  not 
have  purchased.  Some  frightful  diseases  have  been  extir- 
pated by  science  ;  and  some  have  been  banished  by  police. 
The  term  of  human  life  has  been  lengthened  over  the  who^o 
kingdom,  and  especially  in  the  towns.  The  year  1685  was 
not  accounted  sickly;  yet  in  the  year  1685  more  than  one 


332  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

in  twenty-three  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  capital  died.*  Av 
present,  only  one  inhabitant  of  the  capital  in  forty  dies  annu- 
ally. The  difference  in  salubrity  between  the  London  of  the 
nineteenth  century  and  the  London  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury is  very  far  greater  than  the  difference  between  London 
in  an  ordinary  season  and  London  in  the  cholera. 

Still  more  important  is  the  benefit  which  all  orders  of  so- 
ciety, and  especially  the  lower  orders,  have  derived  from  the 
mollifying  influence  of  civilization  on  the  national  character. 
The  groundwork  of  that  character  has  indeed  been  the  same 
through  many  generations,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  ground- 
work of  the  character  of  an  individual  may  be  said  to  be  the 
same  when  he  is  a  rude  and  thoughtless  schoolboy  and  when 
he  is  a  refined  and  accomplished  man.  It  is  pleasing  to  re- 
flect that  the  public  mind  of  England  has  softened  while  it 
has  ripened,  and  that  we  have,  in  the  course  of  ages,  be- 
come, not  only  a  wiser,  but  also  a  kind  r  people.  There  is 
scarcely  a  page  of  the  history  or  lighter  literature  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century  which  does  not  contain  some  proof  that  our 
ancestors  were  less  humane  than  their  posterity.  The  disci- 
pline of  workshops,  of  schools,  of  private  families,  though 
not  more  efficient  than  at  present,  was  infinitely  harsher. 
Masters,  well  born  and  bred,  were  in  the  habit  of  beating 
their  servants.  Pedagogues  knew  no  way  of  imparting  knowl- 
edge but  by  beating  their  pupils.  Husbands,  of  decent  sta- 
tion, were  not  ashamed  to  beat  their  wives.  The  implacabili- 
ty of  hostile  factions  was  such  as  we  can  scarcely  conceive. 
Whigs  were  disposed  to  murmur  because  Stafford  was  suf- 
fered to  die  without  seeing  his  bowels  burned  before  his  face. 
Tories  reviled  and  insulted  Russell  as  his  coach  passed  i'Dm 
the  Tower  to  the  scaffold  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.t  As  lit- 
tle mercy  was  shown  by  the  populace  to  sufferers  of  an  hum- 
bler rank.  If  an  offender  was  put  into  the  pillory,  it  was  well 
if  he  escaped  with  life  from  the  shower  of  brickbats  and  pav- 
ing stones.J  If  he  was  tied  to  the  cart's  tail,  the  crowd 
pressed  round  him,  imploring  the  hangman  to  give  it  the  fel- 
low well,  and  make  him  howl.§  Gentlemen  arranged  parties 

»  The  deaths  were  23,222.  —  Patty's  Political  Arithmetic, 
t  Burnet,  L  560. 

J  Muggleton's  Acts  of  the  Witnesses  of  the  Spirit. 
§  Tom  Brown  describes  such  a  scene  in  lines   which  I  do  not 
renture  to  quote. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  333 

of  pleasure  to  Bridewell  on  court  days,  for  the  purpose  of  see- 
ing the  wretched  women  who  beat  hemp  there  whipped.*  A 
man  pressed  to  death  for  refusing  to  plead,  a  woman  burned 
for  coining,  excited  less  sympathy  than  is  now  felt  for  a  galled 
horse  or  an  over-driven  ox.  Fights,  compared  with  which 
a  boxing  match  is  a  refined  and  humane  spectacle,  were 
among  the  favorite  diversions  of  a  large  part  of  the  town. 
Multitudes  assembled  to  see  gladiators  hack  each  other  to 
pieces  with  deadly  weapons,  and  shouted  with  delight  when 
one  of  the  combatants  lost  a  finger  or  an  eye.  The  prisons 
were  hells  on  earth,  seminaries  of  every  crime  and  of  every 
disease.  At  the  assizes  the  lean  and  yellow  culprits  brought 
with  them  from  their  cells  to  the  dock  an  atmosphere  of  stench 
and  pestilence  which  sometimes  avenged  them  signally  on 
bench,  bar,  and  jury.  But  on  all  this  misery  society  looked 
with  profound  indifference.  Nowhere  could  be  found  that 
sensitive  and  restless  compassion  which  has,  in  our  time,  ex- 
tended a  powerful  protection  to  the  factory  child,  to  the  Hin- 
doo widow,  to  the  negro  slave,  which  pries  into  the  stores  and 
water-casks  of  every  emigrant  ship,  which  winces  at  every 
lash  laid  on  the  back  of  a  drunken  soldier,  which  will  not 
suffer  the  thief  in  the  hulks  to  be  ill  fed  or  overworked,  and 
which  has  repeatedly  endeavored  to  save  the  life  even  of  the 
murderer.  It  is  true  that  compassion  ought,  like  all  other  feel- 
ings, to  be  under  the  government  of  reason,  and  has,  for  want 
of  such  government,  produced  some  ridiculous  and  some  de- 
plorable effects.  But  the  more  we  study  the  annals  of  the 
past  the  more  shall  we  rejoice  that  we  live  in  a  merciful 
age,  in  an  age  in  which  cruelty  is  abhorred,  and  in  which 
pain,  even  when  deserved,  is  inflicted  reluctantly  and  from 
a  sense  of  duty.  Every  class  doubtless  has  gained  largely 
by  this  great  moral  change ;  but  the  class  which  has  gained 
most  is  the  poorest,  the  most  dependent,  and  the  most  de- 
fenceless. 

The  general  effect  of  the  evidence  which  has  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  reader  seems  hardly  to  admit  of  doubt.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  evidence,  many  will  still  image  to  themselves  the 
England  of  the  Stuarts  as  a  more  pleasant  country  than  the 
England  in  which  we  live.  It  may  at  first  sight  seem  strange 
that  society,  while  constantly  moving  forward  with  eager 
speed,  should  be  constantly  looking  backward  with  tendei 

»  Ward's  London  Spy. 


334  HISTORY    0V    ENGLAND. 

regret.  But  these  two  propensities,  inconsistent  us  they  ma) 
appear,  can  easily  be  resolved  into  the  same  principle.  Both 
spring  from  our  impatience  of  the  state  in  which  we  actually 
are.  That  impatience,  while  it  stimulates  us*  to  surpass  pre- 
ceding generations,  disposes  us  to  overrate  their  happiness. 
Jt  is,  in  some  sense,  unreasonable  and  ungrateful  in  us  to  be 
constantly  discontented  with  a  condition  which  is  constantly 
improving.  But,  in  truth,  there  is  constant  improvement  pre- 
cisely because  there  is  constant  discontent.  If  we  were  per- 
fectly satisfied  with  the  present,  we  should  cease  to  contrive, 
to  labor,  and  to  save  with  a  view  to  the  future.  And  it  is 
natural  that,  being  dissatisfied  with  the  present,  we  should  form 
a  too  favorable  estimate  of  the  past. 

In  truth  we  are  under  a  deception  similar  to  that  which 
misleads  the  traveller  in  the " Arabian  desert.  Beneath  the 
caravan  all  is  dry  and  bare ;  but  far  in  advance,  and  far  in 
the  rear,  is  the  semblance  of  refreshing  waters.  The  pilgrims 
hasten  forward  and  find  nothing  but  sand  where,  an  hour  be- 
fore, they  had  seen  a  lake.  They  turn  their  eyes  and  see  a 
lake  where,  an  hour  before,  they  were  toiling  through  sand. 
A  similar  illusion  seems  to  haunt  nations  through  every  stage 
of  the  long  progress  from  poverty  and  barbarism  to  the  high- 
est degrees  of  opulence  and  civilization.  But,  if  we  resolutely 
chase  the  mirage  backward,  we  shall  find  it  recede  before  us 
into  the  regions  of  fabulous  antiquity.  It  is  now  the  fashion 
to  place  the  golden  age  of  England  in  times  whaii  noble- 
men were  destitute  of  comforts,  the  want  of  which  would  be 
intolerable  to  a  modern  footman,  when  farmers  and  shopkeep- 
ers breakfasted  on  Joaves,  the  very  sight  of  which  would  raise 
a  riot  in  a  modern  workhouse,  when  men  died  faster  in  the 
purest  country  air  than  they  now  die  in  the  most  pestilential 
lanes  of  our  towns,  and  when  men  died  faster  in  the  lanes  of 
our  towns  than  they  now  die  on  the  coast  of  Guiana.  We 
too  shall,  in  our  turn,  be  outstripped,  and  in  our  turn  be 
envied.  It  may  well  be,  in  the  twentieth  century,  that  the 
peasant  of  Dorsetshire  may  think  himself  miserably  paid  with 
fifteen  shillings  a  week  ;  that  the  carpenter  at  Greenwich  may 
receive  ten  shillings  a  day ;  that  laboring  men  may  be  as 
little  used  to  dine  without  meat  as  they  now  are  to  eat  rye 
bread ;  that  sanitary  police  and  medical  discoveries  may 
have  added  several  more  years  to  the  average  length  of 
human  life  ;  that  numerous  comforts  and  luxuries  which  are 
now  unknown,  or  confined  to  a  few,  may  be  within  the 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  335 

reach  of  every  diligent  and  thrifty  working  man.  And  yet 
it  may  then  be  the  mode  to  assert  that  the  increase  of  wealth 
and  the  progress  of  science  have  benefited  the  few  at  the 
expense  of  the  many,  and  to  talk  of  the  reign  of  Queen 
Victoria  as  the  time  when  England  was  truly  merry  England, 
when  all  classes  were  bound  together  by  brotherly  sympathy 
when  the  rich  did  not  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor,  and  when 
the  ooor  did  not  envy  the  splendor  of  the  rich. 


336  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  death  of  King  Charles  the  Second  took  the  nation  Dy 
surprise.  His  frame  was  naturally  strong,  and  did  not  appear 
to  have  suffered  from  excess.  He  had  always  been  mindful 
of  his  health  even  in  his  pleasures ;  and  his  habits  were  such 
as  promise  a  long  life  and  a  robust  old  age.  Indolent  as  he 
was  on  all  occasions  which  required  tension  of  the  mind,  he 
was  active  and  persevering  in  bodily  exercise.  He  had, 
when  young,  been  renowned  as  a  tennis  player,*  and  was, 
even  in  the  decline  of  life,  an  indefatigable  walker.  His 
ordinary  pace  was  such  that  those  who  were  admitted  to  the 
honor  of  his  society  found  it  difficult  to  keep  up  with  him. 
He  rose  early,  and  generally  passed  three  or  four  hours  a 
day  in  the  open  air.  He  might  be  seen,  before  the  dew  was 
off  the  grass  in  St.  James's  Park,  striding  among  the  trees, 
playing  with  his  spaniels,  and  flinging  corn  to  his  ducks ;  and 
these  exhibitions  endeared  him  to  the  common  people,  who 
always  love  to  see  the  great  unbend.t 

At  length,  towards  the  close  of  the  year  1684,  he  was  pre- 
vented, by  a  slight  attack  of  what  was  supposed  to  be  gout, 
from  rambling  as  usual.  He  now  spent  his  mornings  in  his 
laboratory,  where  he  amused  himself  with  experiments  on  the 
properties  of  mercury.  His  temper  seemed  to  have  suffered 
from  confinement.  He  had  no  apparent  cause  for  disquiet 
His  kingdom  was  tranquil ;  he  was  Tiot  in  pressing  want  of 
money  ;  his  power  was  greater  than  it  had  ever  been ;  the 
party  which  had  long  thwarted  him  had  been  beaten  down  ; 
but  the  cheerfulness  which  had  supported  him  against  adverse 
fortune  had  vanished  in  this  season  of  prosperity.  A  trifle 
now  sufficed  to  depress  those  elastic  spirits  which  had  borne 
up  against  defeat,  exile,  and  penury.  His  irritation  frequent- 
ly showed  itself  by  looks  and  words  such  as  could  hardly 
have  been  expected  from  a  man  so  eminently  distinguished 

*  Pepys's  Diary,  Dec.  28,  1663,  Sept.  2,  1667. 
t  Burnet,  i.  606  ;  Spectator,  No.  462 ;  Lords'  Journals,  Oct.  28, 
1678 ;  Gibber's  Apology. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  337 

6y  good  humor  and  good  breeding.    It  was  not  supposed,  how- 
ever, that  his  constitution  was  seriously  impaired.* 

His  palace  had  seldom  presented  a  gayer  or  a  more  scan- 
dalous appearance  than  on  the  evening  of  Sunday  the  first  of 
February,  1685.t  Some  grave  persons  who  had  gone  thither, 
after  the  fashion  of  that  age,  to  pay  their  duty  to  their  sover- 
eign and  who  had  expected  that,  on  such  a  day,  his  court 
wou-d  wear  a  decent  aspect,  were  struck  with  astonishment 
and  horror.  The  great  gallery  of  Whitehall,  an  admirable 
relic  of  the  magnificence  of  the  Tudors,  was  crowded  with 
revellers  and  gamblers.  The  king  sate  there  chatting  and 
toying  with  three  women,  whose  charms  were  the  boast,  and 
whose  vices  were  the  disgrace,  of  three  nations.  Barbara 
Palmer,  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  was  there,  no  longer  young, 
but  still  retaining  some  traces  of  that  superb  and  voluptuous 
loveliness  which  twenty  years  before  overcame  the  hearts  of 
all  men.  There  too  was  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  whose 
soft  and  infantine  features  were  lighted  up  with  the  vivacity  of 
France.  Hortensia  Mancini,  Duchess  of  Mazarin,  and  niece 
of  the  great  Cardinal,  completed  the  group.  She  had  been 
early  removed  from  her  native  Italy  to  the  court  where  her 
uncle  was  supreme.  His  power  and  her  own  attractions  had 
drawn  a  crowd  of  illustrious  suitors  round  her.  Charles  him 
self,  during  his  exile,  had  sought  her  hand  in  vain.  No  gift  of 
nature  or  of  fortune  seemed  to  be  wanting  to  her.  Her  facp 
was  beautiful  with  the  rich  beauty  of  the  south,  her  under- 
stand mg  quick,  her  manners  graceful,  her  rank  exalted,  her 
poss'.-ssions  immense  ;  but  her  ungovernable  passions  had 
turned  all  these  blessings  into  curses.  She  had  found  the 
misery  of  an  ill-assorted  marriage  intolerable,  had  fled  from 
her  husband,  had  abandoned  her  vast  wealth,  and,  after  having 
astonished  Rome  and  Piedmont  by  her  adventures,  had  fixed 
her  abode  in  England.  Her  house  was  the  favorite  resort  of 
men  of  wit  and  pleasure,  who,  for  the  sake  of  her  smiles  and 
her  table,  endured  her  frequent  fits  of  insolence  and  ill  humor. 
Rochester  and  Godolphin  sometimes  forgot  the  cares  of  state 
in  hw  company.  Barillon  and  Saint  Evremond  found  in  her 

*  Burnet,  i.  605,  606 ;  Wehvood,  138 ;  North's  Life  of  Guildford, 
251. 

f  I  may  take  this  opportunity  of  mentioning  that  whenever  I  give 
only  one  date,  I  follow  the  old  style,  which  was,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  style  of  England ;  but  I  reckon  the  year  from  the  first 
of  January. 

VOL.  I.  29 


338  HISTORY    OF    KNGLAKD. 

drawing-room  consolation  for  their  long  banishment  from 
Paris.  The  learning  of  Vossius,  the  wit  of  Waller,  were 
daily  employed  to  flatter  and  amuse  her.  But  her  diseased 
mind  required  stronger  stimulants,  and  sought  them  in  gal- 
lantry, in  basset,  and  in  usquebaugh.*  While  Charles  flirted 
with  his  three  sultanas,  Hortensia's  French  page,  a  handsome 
!x>y,  whose  vocal  performances  were  the  delight  of  Whitehall, 
and  were  rewarded  by  numerous  presents  of  rich  clothea 
ponies,  and  guineas,  warbled  some  amorous  verses.t  A  party 
of  twenty  courtiers  was  seated  at  cards  round  a  large  table  on 
.vhich  gold  was  heaped  in  mountains.^  'Even  then  the  king 
had  complained  that  he  did  not  feel  quite  well.  He  had  no 
Appetite  for  his  supper  ;  his  rest  that  night  was  broken  ;  but 
on  the  following  morning  he  rose,  as  usual,  early. 

To  that  morning  the  contending  factions  in  his  council  had, 
during  some  days,  looked  forward  with  anxiety.  The  strug- 
gle between  Halifax  and  Rochester  seemed  to  be  approaching 
a  decisive  crisis.  Halifax,  not  content  with  having  already 
1 1  riven  his  rival  from  the  board  of  Treasury,  had  undertaken 
!o  prove  him  guilty  of  such  dishonesty  or  neglect  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  finances  as  ought  to  be  punished  by  dismission 
from  the  public  service.  It  was  even  whispered  that  the  lord 
president  would  probably  be  sent  to  the  Tower  before  night. 
The  king  had  promised  to  inquire  into  the  matter.  The  sec- 
ond of  February  had  been  fixed  for  the  investigation;  and 
several  officers  of  the  revenue  had  been  ordered  to  attend 
with  their  books  on  that  day.§  But  a  great  turn  of  fortune 
was  at  hand. 

Scarcely  had  Charles  risen  from  his  bed  when  his  attend- 
ants perceived  that  his  utterance  was  indistinct,  and  that  his 
thoughts  seemed  to  be  wandering.  Several  men  of  rank  had, 
as  usual,  assembled  to  see  their  sovereign  shaved  and  dressed. 
He  made  an  effort  to  converse  with  them  in  his  usual  gay 

*  Saint  Evremond,  passim.  St.  Real,  M6moires  de  la  Duchesse  de 
Mazarin;  Rochester's  Farewell;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Sept.  6,  1676,  June 
11,  1699. 

t  Evelyn's  Diary,  Jan.  28,  168f.  Saint  Evremond's  Letter  to 
U6ry. 

1  Evelyn's  Diary,  Feb.  4,  168$. 

§  Roger  North's  Life  of  Sir  Dudley  North,  170  ;  The  True  Patriot 

vindicated,  or  a  Justification  of,  his  Excellency  the  E of  R ; 

Burnet,  i.  605.  The  Treasury  Books  prove  that  Burnet  had  good 
intelligence. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  339 

style ;  but  his  ghastly  look  surprised  and  alarmed  them. 
Soon  his  face  grew  black  ;  his  eyes  turned  in  his  head  ;  he 
uttered  a  cry,  staggered,  and  fell  into  the  arms  of  Thomas 
Lord  Bruce,  eldest  son  of  the  Earl  of  Ailesbury.  A  physi- 
cian who  had  charge  of  the  royal  retorts  and  crucibles  hap- 
pened to  be  present.  He  had  no  lancet ;  but  he  opened  a  vein 
with  a  penknife.  The  blood  flowed  freely  ;  but  the  king  was 
still  insensible. 

He  was  laid  on  his  bed,  where,  during  a  short  time,  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth  hung  over  him  with  the  familiarity  of 
a  wife.  But  the  alarm  had  been  given.  The  queen  and  the 
Duchess  of  York  were  hastening  to  the  room.  The  favorite 
concubine  was  forced  to  retire  to  her  own  apartments. 
Those  apartments  had  been  thrice  pulled  down  and  thrice 
rebuilt 'by  her  lover  to  gratify  her  caprice.  The  very  furni- 
ture of  the  chimney  was  massy  silver.  Several  fine  paintings, 
which  properly  belonged  to  the  queen,  had  been  transferred  to 
the  dwelling  of  the  mistress.  The  sideboards  were  piled  with 
richly-wrought  plate.  In  the  niches  stood  cabinets,  the  master- 
pieces of  Japanese  art.  On  the  hangings,  fresh  from  the 
looms  of  Paris,  were  depicted,  in  tints  which  no  English  tapes- 
try could  rival,  birds  01  gorgeous  plumage,  landscapes,  hunt- 
ing matches,  the  lordly  terrace  of  St.  Germain's,  the  statues 
and  fountains  of  Versailles.*  In  the  midst  of  this  splendor, 
purchased  by  guilt  and  shame,  the  unhappy  woman  gave  her- 
self up  to  an  agony  of  grief,  which,  to  do  her  justice,  was  not 
wholly  selfish. 

And  now  the  gates  of  Whitehall,  which  ordinarily  stood 
open  to  all  comers,  were  closed.  But  persons  whose  faces 
were  known  were  still  permitted  to  enter.  The  antechambers 
and  galleries  were  soon  filled  to  overflowing ;  and  even  the 
sick  room  was  crowded  with  peers,  privy  councillors,  and 
foreign  ministers.  All  the  medical  men  of  note  in  London 
were  summoned.  So  high  did  political  animosities  run  that 
the  presence  of  some  Whig  physicians  was  regarded  as  an 
extraordinary  circumstance.!  One  Roman  Catholic  whcse 
skill  was  then  widely  renowned,  Doctor  Thomas  Short,  was 
in  attendance.  Several  of  the  prescriptions  have  been  pre- 
served. One  of  them  is  signed  by  fourteen  doctors.  The 
patient  was  bled  largely.  Hot  iron  was  applied  to  his  head. 

*  Evelyn's  Diary,  Jan.  24,  1G8£,  Oct.  4,  1683. 
t  Dugdale's  Correspondence. 


340  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

A  loathsome  volatile  salt,  extracted  from  human  skulls,  was 
forced  into  his  mouth.  He  recovered  his  senses  ;  but  he  was 
evidently  in  a  situation  of  extreme  danger. 

The  queen  was  for  a  time  assiduous  in  her  attendance, 
The  Duke  of  York  scarcely  left  his  brother's  bedside.  The 
primate  and  four  other  bishops  were  then  in  London.  They 
remained  at  Whitehall  all  day,  and  took  it  by  turns  to  sit  up 
at  night  in  the  king's  room.  The  news  of  his  illness  filled 
the  capital  with  sorrow  and  dismay.  For  his  easy  temper 
and  affable  manners  had  won  the  affection  of  a  large  part 
of  the  nation  ;  and  those  who  most  disliked  him  preferred 
his  unprincipled  \evity  to  the  stern  and  earnest  bigotry  of  his 
brother. 

On  the  morring  of  Thursday  the  fifth  of  February,  the 
London  Gazette  announced  that  his  majesty  was  going  on 
well,  and  was  t)  ought  by  the  physicians  to  be  out  of  danger. 
The  bells  of  all  'he  churches  rang  merrily  ;  and  preparations 
for  bonfires  wen  made  in  the  streets.  But  in  the  evening  it 
was  known  that  °  relapse  had  taken  place,  and  that  the  med- 
ical attendants  ha4  given  up  all  hope.  The  public  mind  was 
greatly  disturbed  but  there  was  no  disposition  to  tumult. 
The  Duke  of  ToA,  who  had  already  taken  on  himself  to 
give  orders,  ascertanod  that  the  city  was  perfectly  quiet,  and 
that  he  might  without  i'fficulty  be  proclaimed  as  soon  as  his 
brother  should  expire. 

The  king  was  in  great  *)ain,  and  complained  that  he  felt  as 
if  a  fire  was  burning  withH  him.  Yet  he  bore  up  against  his 
sufferings  with  a  fortitude  MYch  did  not  seem  to  belong  to 
his  soft  and  luxurious  nati**r  The  sight  of  his  misery 
affected  his  wife  so  much  tha  ;-he  fainted,  and  ^vas  carried 
senseless  to  her  chamber.  The  4*r?lates  who  were  in  waiting 
had  from  the  first  exhorted  him  to  t  ronare  for  his  end.  They 
now  thought  it  their  duty  to  address  l.'tr  in  a  still  more  urgen1 
manner.  William  Bancroft,  Archbislvo  nf  Canterbury,  ap 
honest  and  pious,  though  narrow-minde  t  man,  used  grea; 
freedom.  "  It  is  time,"  he  said,  "  to  speal  ">i't ;  for,  sir,  you 
are  about  to  appear  before  a  Judge  who  is  ^o  respecter  ot 
persons."  The  king  answered  not  a  word. 
^-Thomas  Ken,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  tVn  tried  hk 
powers  of  persuasion.  He  was  a  man  of  parts  a.  d  ie^rninjr 
of  quick  sensibility  and  stainless  virtue.  His  elabor.  te  works 
have  long  been  forgotten ;  but  his  morning  and  evening 
are  still  repeated  daily  in  thousands  of  dwellings. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  341 

ike  most  of  his  order,  zealous  for  monarchy,  he  was  no 
sycophant.  Before  he  became  a  bishop,  he  had  maintained 
'he  honor  of  his  gown  by  refusing,  when  the  court  was  at 
Winchester,  to  let  Eleanor  Gwynn  lodge  in  the  house  which 
he  occupied  there  as  a  prebendary.*  The  king  had  sense 
enough  to  respect  so  manly  a  spirit.  Of  all  the  prelates  he 
liked  Ken  the  best.  It  was  to  no  purpose,  however,  that  the 
good  bishop  now  put  forth  all  his  eloquence.  His  solemn 
and  pathetic  exhortation  awed  and  melted  the  bystanders  to 
such  a  degree  that  some  among  them  believed  him  to  be 
filled  with  the  same  spirit  which,  in  the^  old  time,  had,  by  the 
mouths  of  Nathan  and  Elias,  called  sinful  , princes  to  repent- 
ance. Charles,  however,  was  unmoved.  He  made  no  objec 
tion,  indeed,  when  the  service  for  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick 
was  read.  In  reply  to  the  pressing  questions  of  the  divines, 
he  said  that  he  was  sorry  for  what  he  had  done  amiss x,  and 
he  suffered  the  absolution  to  be  pronounced  over  him  accord- 
ing to  the  forms  of  the  Church  of  England ;  but,  when  he 
was  urged  to  declare  that  he  died  in  the  communion  of  that 
Church,  he  seemed  not  to  hear  what  was  said  ;  and  nothing 
could  induce  him  to  take  the  Eucharist  from  the  hands  of  the 
bishops.  A  table  with  bread  and  wine  was  brought  to  his 
bedside,  but  in  vain.  Sometimes  he  said  that  there  was  no 
hurry,  and  sometimes  that  he  was  too  weak. 

Many  attributed  this  apathy  to  contempt  for  divine  things, 
and  many  to  the  stupor  which  often  precedes  death.  But 
there  were  in  the  palace  a  few  persons  who  knew  better. 
Charles  had  never  been  a  sincere  member  of  the  Established 
Church.  His  mind  had  long  oscillated  between  Hobbism  and 
Popery.  When  his  health  was  good  and  his  spirits  high,  he 
was  a  scoffer.  In  his  few  serious  moments  he  was  a  Roman 
Catholic.  The  Duke  of  York  was  aware  of  this,  but  was 
entirely  occupied  with  the  care  of  his  own  interests.  He  had 
ordered  the  outports  to  be  closed.  He  had  posted  detachments 
of  the  guards  in  different  parts  of  the  city.  He  had  also 
procured  the  feeble  signature  of  the  dying  king  to  an  instru- 
ment by  which  some  duties,  granted  only  till  the  demise  of 
the  crown,  were  let  to  farm  for  a  term  of  three  years.  These 
things  occupied  the  attention  of  James  to  such  a  degree  that, 
though,  on  ordinary  occasions,  he  was  indiscreetly  and  un- 
seasonably eager  to  bring  over  proselytes  to  his  church,  he 

*  Hawkins's  Life  of  Ken,  1713. 
29* 


342  HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND. 

never  reflected  that  his  brother  was  in  danger  of  dying  without 
the  last  sacraments.  This  neglect  was  the  more  extraordinary 
because  the  Duchess  of  York  had,  at  the  request  of  the  queen, 
suggested,  on  the  morning  on  which  the  king  was  taken  il), 
the  propriety  of  procuring  spiritual  assistance.  For  such 
assistance  Charles  was  at  last  indebted  to  an  agency  very 
different  from  that  of  his  pious  wife  and  sister-in-law.  A 
life  of  frivolity  and  vice  had  not  extinguished  in  the  Duchess 
of  Portsmouth  all  sentiments  of  religion,  or  all  that  kindness 
which  is  the  glory  of  her  sex.  The  French  ambassador 
Barillon,  who  had  come  to  the  palace  to  inquire  after  the 
king,  paid  her  a  visit.  He  found  her  in  an  agony  of  sorrow. 
She  took  him  into  a  secret  room,  and  poured  out  her  whole 
heart  to  him.  "  I  have,"  she  said,  "  a  thing  of  great  moment 
to  tell  you.  If  it  were  known,  my  head  would  be  in  danger. 
The  king  is  really  and  truly  a  Catholic ;  but  he  will  die  with- 
out being  reconciled  to  the  church.  His  bedchamber  is  full 
of  Protestant  clergymen.  I  cannot  enter  it  without  giving 
scandal.  The  duke  is  thinking  only  of  himself.  Speak  to 
him.  Remind  him  that  there  is  a  soul  at  stake.  He  is  master 
now.  He  can  clear  the  room.  Go  this  instant,  or  it  will  b« 
too  late." 

Barillon  hastened  to  the  bedchamber,  took  the  duke  aside, 
and  delivered  the  message  of  the  mistress.  The  conscience 
of  James  smote  him.  He  started  as  if  roused  from  sleep, 
and  declared  that  nothing  should  prevent  him  from  discharg- 
ing the  sacred  duty  which  had  been  too  long  delayed.  Several 
schemes  were  discussed  and  rejected.  At  last  the  duke  com- 
manded the  crowd  to  stand  aloof,  went  to  the  bed,  stooped 
down,  and  whispered  something  which  none  of  the  spectators 
could  hear,  but  which  they  supposed  to  be  some  question 
about  affairs  of  state.  Charles  answered  in  an  audible  voice, 
"  Yes,  yes,  with  all  my  heart."  None  of  the  bystanders, 
except  the  French  ambassador,  guessed  that  the  king  was 
declaririg  his  wish  to  be  admitted  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church 
of  Rome. 

"  Shall  I  bring  a  priest?  "-said  the  duke.  "  Do,  brother,'* 
replied  the  sick  man.  "  Fqr  God's  sake  do,  and  lose  no  time. 
But  no  ;  you  will  get  into  trouble."  "  If  it  costs  me  my  life," 
said  the  duke,  "  I  will  fetch  a  priest." 

To  find  a  priest,  however,  for  such  a  purpose,  at  a  moment's 
notice,  was  not  easy.  For,  as  the  law  then  stood,  the  person 
who  admitted  a  proselyte  into  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 


HISTOR1     >F     ENGLAND.  343 

was  guilty  of  a  capital  crime  The  Count  of  Castel  Melhor 
a  Portuguese  nobleman,  who,  driven  by  political  troubles  from 
his  native  land,  had  been  hospitably  received  at  the  English 
court,  undertook  to  procure  a  confessor.  He  had  recourse  to 
his  countrymen  who  belonged  to  the  queen's  household  ;  but 
he  found  that  none  of  her  chaplains  knew  English  or  French 
enough  to  shrive  the  king.  The  duke  and  Barillon  were 
about  to  send  to  the  Venetian  minister  for  a  clergyman,  when 
they  heard  that  a  Benedictine  monk,  named  John  Huddleston, 
happened  to  be  at  Whitehall.  This  man  had,  with  great  risk 
to  himself,  saved  the  king's  life  after  the  battle  of  Worcester, 
and  had,  on  thaf  account,  been,  ever  since  the  Restoration,  a 
privileged  person.  In  the  sharpest  proclamations  which  were 
put  forth  against  Popish  priests,  when  false  witnesses  had 
inflamed  the  nation  to  fury,  Huddleston  had  been  excepted 
by  name.*  He  readily  consented  to  put  his  life  a  second 
time  in  peril  for  his  prince  ;  but  there  was  still  a  difficulty. 
The  honest  monk  wao  so  illiterate  that  he  did  not  know  what 
he  ought  to  say  on  an  occasion  of  such  importance.  He,  how- 
ever, obtained  some  hints,  through  the  intervention  of  Castel 
Melhor,  from  a  Portuguese  ecclesiastic,  and,  thus  instructed, 
was  brought  up  the  back  stairs  by  Chiffinch,  a  confidential 
servant,  who,  if  the  satires  of  that  age  are  to  be  credited,  had 
often  introduced  visitors  of  a  very  different  description  by  the 
Same  entrance.  The  duke  then,  in  the  king's  name,  com- 
manded all  who  were  present  to  quit  the  room,  except  Lewis 
Duras,  Earl  of  Feversham,  and  John  Granville,  Earl  of  Bath. 
Both  these  lords  professed  the  Protestant  religion ;  but  James 
conceived  that  he  could  count  on  their  fidelity.  Feversham, 
a  Frenchman  of  noble  birth,  and  nephew  of  the  great  Tu- 
renne,  held  high  rank  in  the  English  army,  and  was  chamber- 
lain to  the  queen,  Bath  was  groom  of  the  stole. 

The  duke's  orders  were  obeyed  ;  and  even  the  physicians 
withdrew.  The  back  door  was  then  opened,  and  Father 
Huddleston  entered.  A  cloak  had  been  thrown  over  his 
sacred  vestments,  and  his  shaven  crown  was  concealed  by  a 
flowing  wig.  "  Sir,"  said  the  duke,  "  this  good  man  once 
saved  your  life.  He  now  comes  to  save  your  soul."  Charles 
faintly  answered,  "  He  is  welcome."  Huddleston  went 

*  See  the  London  Gazette  of  Nov.  21,  1678.  Banllon  and  Burnet 
»ay  tb  at  Huddleston  was  excepted  out  of  all  the  acts  of  parliament 
made  against  priests ;  but  this  is  a  mistake.  , 


344  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

through  his  part  better  than  had  been  expected.  He  knelt 
by  the  bed,  listened  to  tiJe  confession,  pronounced  the  absolu-v 
tion,  and  administered  extreme  unction.  He  asked  if  the 
king  wished  to  receive  the  Lord's  supper.  "  Surely,"  said 
Charles,  "  if  I  am  not  unworthy."  The  host  was  brought  in. 
Charles  feebly  strove  to  rise  and  kneel  before  it.  The  priesi 
bade  him  lie  still,  and  assured  him  that  God  would  accept 
the  humiliation  of  the  soul,  and  would  not  require  the  humilia- 
tion of  'the  body.  The  king  found  so  much  difficulty  in 
swallowing  the  bread  that  it  was  necessary  to  open  the  door 
and  to  procure  a  glass  of  water.  This  rite  ended,  the  monk 
held  up  a  crucifix  before  the  penitent,  charged  him  to  fix  his 
last  thoughts  on  the  sufferings  of  the  Redeemer,  and  withdrew 
The  whole  ceremony  had  occupied  about  three  quarters  of  an 
hour  ;  and,  during  that  time,  the  courtiers  who  filled  the  outer 
room  had  communicated  their  suspicions  to  each  other  by 
whispers  and  significant  glances.  The  door  was  at  length 
thrown  open,  and  the  crowd  again  filled  the  chamber  of  death. 

It  was  now  late  in  the  evening.  The  king  seemed  much 
relieved  by  what  had  passed.  His  natural  children  were 
brought  to  his  bedside,  the  Dukes  of  Grafton,  Southampton, 
and  Northumberland,  sons  of  the  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  the 
Duke  of  St.  Alban's,  son  of  Eleanor  Gwynn,  and  the  Duke 
of  Richmond,  son  of  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth.  Charles 
blessed  them  all,  "but  spoke  with  peculiar  tenderness  to  Rich- 
mond. One  face  which  should  have  been  there  was  wanting. 
The  eldest  and  best  beloved  child  was  an  exile  and  a  wanderer. 
His  name  was  not  once  mentioned  by  his  father. 

During  the  night  Charles  earnestly  recommended  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth  and  her  boy  to  the  care  of  James. 
"  And  do  not,"  he  goodnaturedly  added,  "  let  poor  Nelly 
starve."  The  queen  sent  excuses  for  her  absence  by  Halifax 
She  said  that  she  was  too  much  disordered  to  resume  her  post 
by  the  couch,  and  implored  pardon  for  any  offence  which  she 
might  unwittingly  have  given.  "  She  ask  my  pardon,  poor 
woman  !  "  cried  Charles  ;  "  I  ask  hers  with  all  my  heart." 

The  morning  light  began  to  peep  through  the  windows  of 
Whitehall ;  and  Charles  desired  the  attendants  to  pull  aside 
the  curtains,  that  he  might  have  one  more  look  at  the  day. 
He  remarked  that  it  was  time  to  wind  up  a  clock  which  stood 
near  his  bed.  These  little  circumstances  were  long  remem- 
bered, because  they  proved  beyond  dispute  that  when  he  de- 
clared himself  a  Roman  Catholic,  he  was  in  full  possession  of 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  345 

Ats  faculties.  He  apologized  to  those  who  had  stood  round  him 
ull  night  for  the  trouble  which  he  had  caused.  He  had  been, 
he  said,  a  most  unconscionable  time  dying ;  but  he  hoped  that 
they  would  excuse  it.  This  was  the  last  glimpse  of  that  ex- 
quisite urbanity,  so  often  found  potent  to  charm  away  the 
esentment  of  a  justly-incensed  nation.  Soon  after  dawn  the 
speech  of  the  dying  man  failed.  Before  ten  his  senses  were 
gone.  Great  numbers  had  repaired  to  the  churches  at  the 
hour  of  morning  service.  When  the  prayer  for  the  king  was 
read,  loud  groans  and  sobs  showed  how  deeply  his  people  felt 
for  him.  At  neon  on  Friday,  the  sixth  of  February,  he  passed 
away  without  a  struggle.* 

At  that  time  the  common  people  throughout  Europe,  and 

*  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the  Second,  i.  746,  Orig.  Mem. ;  Baril- 
lon's  Despatch,  of  Feb.  -fa,  1685 j  Citters's  Despatches  of  Feb.  -fa 
and  Feb.  -jfg- ;  Huddleston's  Narrative ;  Letters  of  Philip,  second 
Earl  of  Chesterfield,  277  ;  Sir  H.  Ellis's  Original  Letters,  First  Series, 
iii.  333 ;  Second  Series,  iv.  74 ;  Chaillot  MS. ;  Burnet,  i.  606  ;  Evelyn's 
Diary,  Feb.  4,  168  f- ;  Welwood's  Memoirs,  140 ;  North's  Life  of  Guild- 
ford,  252 ;  Examen,  648 ;  Hawkins's  Life  of  Ken ;  Dryden's  Thre- 
nodia  Augustalis ;  Sir  H.  Halford's  Essay  on  Deaths  of  Eminent 
Persons.  See  also  a  fragment  of  a  letter  which  Lord  Bruce  wrote 
long  after  he  had  become  Earl  of  Ailesbury,  and  which  is  printed  in 
the  European  Magazine  for  April,  1795.  Ailesbury  calls  Burnet  an 
impostor.  Yet  his  own  narrative  and  Burnet's  will  not,  to  any  candid 
and  sensible  reader,  appear  to  contradict  each  other.  I  have  seen  in 
the  British  Museum,  and  also  in  the  Library  of  the  Royal  Institution 
a  curious  broadside  containing  an  account  of  the  death  of  Charles. 
The  author  was  evidently  a  zealous  Roman  Catholic,  and  must  have 
had  access  to  good  sources  of  information.  I  strongly  suspect  that  he 
had  been  in  communication,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  James  him- 
self. No  name  is  given  at  length ;  but  the  initials  are  perfectly  intel- 
ligible, except  in  one  place.  It  is  said  that  the  D.  of  Y.  was  reminded 
of  the  duty  which  he  owed  to  his  brother  by  P.  M.  A.  C.  F.  I  must 
own  myself  quite  unable  to  decipher  the  last  five  letters. 

It  should  seem  that  no  transactions  in  history  ought  to  be  more 
accurately  known  to  us  than  those  which  took  place  round  the  death- 
bed of  Charles  the  Second.  We  have  several  relations  written  by 
persons  who  were  actually  in  his  room.  We  have  several  relations 
•written  by  persons  who,  though  not  themselves  eye-witnesses,  had 
the  best  opportunities  of  obtaining  information  from  eye-witnesses. 
Yet  whoever  attempts  to  digest  this  vast  mass  of  materials  into  a 
consistent  narrative  will  find  the  task  a  difficult  one.  Indeed  James 
and  his  wife,  when  they  told  the  story  to  the  nuns  of  Chaillot,  could 
not  agree  as  to  some  circumstances.  The  queen  said  that,  after 
Charles  had  received  the  last  sacraments,  the  Protestant  bishops 
renewed  their  exhortations.  The  king  said  that  nothing  of  the 
kind  took  place.  "  Surely,"  said  the  queen,  "  you  told  me  so  your- 

29* 


346  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

no  where  more  than  in  England,  were  in  the  habit  of  attrib* 
uting  the  deaths  of  princes,  especially  when  the  prince  was 
popular  and  the  death  unexpected,  to  the  foulest  and  darkest 
kind  of  assassination.  Thus  Jameis  the  First  had  been  accused 
of  poisoning  Prince  Henry.  Thus  Charles  the  First  had  been 
accused  of  poisoning  James  the  First.  Thus  when,  in  the 
time  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  Princess  Elizabeth  died  at 
Carisbrook,  it  had  been  loudly  asserted  that  Cromwell  had 
stooped  to  the  senseless  and  dastardly  wickedness  of  mixing 
noxious  drugs  with  the  food  of  a  young  girl  whom  he  had  no 
conceivable  motive  to  injure.*  A  few  years  later,  the  rapid 
decomposition  of  Cromwell's  own  corpse  was  ascribed  by 
many  to  a  deadly  potion  administered  in  his  medicine.  The 
death  of  Charles  the  Second  could  scarcely  fail  to  occasion 
similar  rumors.  The  public  ear  had  been  repeatedly  abused 
by  stories  of  Popish  plots  against  his  life.  There  was,  there- 
fore, in  many  minds,  a  strong  predisposition  to  suspicion,  and 
there  were  some  unlucky  circumstances  which,  to  minds  so 
predisposed,  might  seem  to  indicate  that  a  crime  had  been 
perpetrated.  The  fourteen  doctors  who  deliberated  on  the 
king's  case  contradicted  each  other  and  themselves.  Some 
of  them  thought  that  his  fit  was  epileptic,  and  that  he  should 
be  suffered  to  have  his  doze  out.  The  majority  pronounced 

self."  "  It  is  impossible  that  I  could  have  told  you  so,"  said  the  king ; 
"for  nothing  of  the  sort  happened." 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  Sir  Henry  Halford  should  have 
taken  so  little  trouble  to  ascertain  the  facts  on  which  he  pronounced 
judgment.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  been  aware  of  the  existence 
of  the  narratives  of  James,  Barillon,  and  Huddleston. 

As  this  is  the  first  occasion  on  which  I  cite  the  correspondence  of 
the  Dutch  ministers  at  the  English  court,  I  ought  here  to  mention 
that  a  series  of  their  despatches,  from  the  accession  of  James  the 
Second  to  his  flight,  forms  one  of  the  most  valuable  parts  of  the 
Mackintosh  collection.  The  subsequent  despatches,  down  to  the 
settlement  of  the  government  in  February,  1689, 1  procured  from  the 
Hague.  The  Dutch  archives  have  been  far  too  little  explored.  They 
abound  with  information  interesting  in  the  highest  degree  to  every 
Englishman.  They  are  admirably  arranged;  and  they  are  in  the 
charge  of  gentlemen  whose  courtesy,  liberality,  and  zeal  for  the 
interests  of  literature,  cannot  be  too  highly  praised.  I  -wish  to  ac- 
knowledge, in  the  strongest  manner,  my  own  obligations  to  Mr.  De 
Jonge  and  to  Mr.  Van  Zwanne. 

*  Clarendon  mentions  this  calumny  with  just  scorn.  "According 
to  the  charity  of  the  time  towards  Cromwell,  very  many  would  have 
it  believed  to  be  by  poison,  of  which  there  was  no  appearance,  nor 
any  proof  ever  after  made."  Book  xiv.  ' 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  347 

him  apoplectic,  and  tortured  him  during  some  hours  like  an 
Indian  at  a  stake.  Then  it  was  determined  to  call  his  com- 
plaint a  fever,  and  to  administer  doses  of  bark.  One  physi- 
cian, however,  protested  against  this  course,  and  assured  the 
queen  that  his  brethren  would  kill  the  king  among  them. 
Nothing  better  than  dissension  and  vacillation  could  be  ex- 
pected from  such  a  multitude  of  advisers.  But  many  of  the 
vulgar  not  unnaturally  concluded,  from  the  perplexity  of  the 
great  masters  of  the  nealing  art,  that  the  malady  had  some 
extraordinary  origin.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  a  hor- 
rible suspicion  did  actually  cross  the  mind  of  Short,  who, 
though  skilful  in  his  profession,  seems  to  have  been  a  nervous 
and  fanciful  man,  and  whose  perceptions  were  probably  con- 
fused by  dread  of  the  odious  imputations  to  which  he,  as  a 
Roman  Catholic,  was  peculiarly  exposed.  We  cannot,  there- 
fore, wonder  that  wild  stories  without  number  were  repeated 
and  believed  by  the  common  people.  His  majesty's  tongue 
had  swelled  to  the  size  of  a  neat's  tongue.  A  cake  of  dele- 
terious powder  had  been  found  in  his  brain.  There  were  blue 
spots  on  his  breast.  There  were  black  spots  on  his  shoulder. 
Something  had  been  put  into  his  snuff-box.  Something  had 
been  put  into  his  broth.  Something  had  been  put  into  hia 
favorite  dish  of  eggs  and  ambergris.  The  Duchess  of 
Portsmouth  had  poisoned  him  in  a  cup  of  chocolate.  The 
queen  had  poisoned  him  in  a  jar  of  dried  pears.  Such  tales 
ought  to  be  preserved  ;  for  they  furnish  us  with  a  measure  of 
the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  generation  which  eagerly 
devoured  them.  That  no  rumor  of  the  same  kind  has  ever, 
in  the  present  age,  found  credit  among  us,  even  when  lives  on 
which  great  interests  depended  have  been  terminated  by  un- 
foreseen attacks  of  disease,  is  to  be  attributed  partly  to  the 
progress  of  medical  and  chemical  science,  but  partly,  also,  it 
may  be  hoped,  to  the  progress  which  the  nation  has  made  in 
good  sense,  justice,  and  humanity.* 

When  all  was  over,  James  retired  from  the  bedside  to  his 

*  "Wehvood,  139  ;  Burnet,  i.  609 ;  Sheffield's  Character  of  Charles 
the  Second;  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  252;  Examen,  G48 ;  Revolu- 
tion Politics  ;  Higgons  on  Burnet.  AVhat  North  says  of  the  embar- 
rassment and  vacillation  of  the  physicians  is  confirmed  by  the 
despatches  of  Citters.  I  have  been  much  perplexed  by  the  strange 
story  about  Short's  suspicions.  I  was,  at  one  time,  inclined  to  adopt 
North's  solution.  But,  though  I  attach  little  weight  to  the  authority 
of  "NVelwood  and  Burnet  in  such  a  case,  I  cannot  reject  the  testimony 
of  so  well  informed  and  so  unwilling  a  -witness  as  Sheffield. 


348  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

closet,  where,  during  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  he  remained  alone. 
Meanwhile  the  privy  councillors  who  were  in  the  palace  assem- 
bled. The  new  king  came  forth,  and  took  his  place  at  the 
head  of  the  board.  He  commenced  his  reign,  according  to 
usage,  by  a  speech  to  the  council.  He  expressed  his  regret 
for  the  loss  which  he  had  just  sustained,  and  promised  to  imi- 
tate the  singular  lenity  which  had  distinguished  the  late  reign. 
He  was  aware,  he  said,  that  he  had  been  accused  of  a  fond- 
ness for  arbitrary  power.  But  that  was  not  the  only  falsehood 
which  had  been  told  of  him.  He  was  resolved  to  maintain 
the  established  government  both  in  church  and  state.  The 
Church  of  England  he  knew  to  be  eminently  loyal.  It  should 
therefore  always  be  his  care  to  support  and  defend  her.  The 
laws  of  England,  he  also  knew,  were  sufficient  to  make  him 
as  great  a  king  as  he  could  wish  to  be.  He  would  not  relin- 
quish his  own  rights  ;  but  he  would  respect  the  rights  of  others. 
He  had  formerly  risked  his  life  in  defence  of  his  country,  and 
he  would  still  go  as  far  as  any  man  in  support  of  her  just 
liberties. 

This  speech  was  not,  like  modern  speeches  on  similar  occa- 
sions, carefully  prepared  by  the  advisers  of  the  sovereign.  It 
was  the  extemporaneous  expression  of  the  new  king's  feelings 
at  a  moment  of  great  excitement.  The  members  of  the  coun- 
cil broke  forth  into  clamors  of  delight  and  gratitude.  The  lord 
president  Rochester,  in  the  name  of  his  brethren,  expressed  a 
hope  that  his  majesty's  most  welcome  declaration  would  be 
made  public.  The  solicitor-general,  Heneage  Finch,  offered 
to  act  as  clerk.  He  was  a  zealous  Churchman,  and,  as  such, 
was  naturally  desirous  that  there  should  be  some  permanent 
record  of  the  gracious  promises  which  had  just  been  uttered. 
"  Those  promises,"  he  said,  "  have  made  so  deep  an  impres- 
sion on  me  that  I  can  repeat  them  word  for  word."  He  soon 
produced  his  report.  James  read  it,  approved  of  it,  and 
ordered  it  to  be  published.  At  a  later  period  he  said,  that  he 
had  taken  this  step  without  due  consideration,  that  his  unpre- 
meditated expressions  touching  the  Church  of  England  were 
too  strong,  and  that  Finch  had,  with  a  dexterity  which  at  the 
time  escaped  notice,  made  them  still  stronger.* 

The  king  had  beeji  exhausted  by  long  watching  and  by 
many  violent  emotions.  He  now  retired  to  rest.  The  privy 

*  London  Gazette,  Feb.  9,  168$ ;  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the  Sec- 
ond, u.  3;  Barillon,  Feb.  ^T;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Feb.  6. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  349 

councillors,  having  respectfully  accompanied  him  to  his  bed. 
chamber,  returned  to  their  seats,  and  issued  orders  for  the 
ceremony  of  proclamation.  The  guards  were  under  arms ; 
the  heralds  appeared  in  their  gorgeous  coats  ;  and  the  pageant 
proceeded  without  any  obstruction.  Casks  of  wine  were 
broken  up  in  the  streets,  and  all  who  passed  were  invited  to 
drink  to  the  health  of  the  new  sovereign.  But,  though  an 
occasional  shout  was  raised,  the  people  were  not  in  a  joyous 
mood.  Tears  were  seen  in  many  eyes ;  and  it  was  remarked 
that  there  was  scarcely  a  housemaid  in  London  who  had  not 
contrived  to  procure  some  fragment  of  black  crape  in  honor 
of  King  Charles.* 

The  funeral  called  forth  much  censure.  It  would,  indeed, 
hardly  have  been  accounted  worthy  of  a  noble  and  opulent 
subject.  The  Tories  gently  blamed  the  new  king's  parsi- 
mony ;  the  Whigs  sneered  at  his  want  of  natural  affection ; 
and  the  fiery  Covenanters  of  Scotland  exultingly  proclaimed 
that  thex  curse  denounced  of  old  against  wicked  princes  had 
been  signally  fulfilled,  and  that  the  departed  tyrant  had  been 
buried  with  the  burial  of  an  ass.t  Yet  James  commenced  his 
administration  with  a  large  measure  of  public  good  will.  His 
speech  to  the  council  appeared  in  print,  and  the  impression 
which  it  produced  was  highly  favorable  to  him.  This,  then, 
was  the  prince  whom  a  faction  had  driven  into  exile  and  had 
tried  to  rob  of  his  birthright,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a 
deadly  enemy  to  the  religion  and  laws  of  England.  He  had 
triumphed ;  he  was  on  the  throne ;  and  his  first  act  was  to 
declare  that  he  would  defend  the  Church,  and  would  strictly 
respect  the  rights  of  his  people.  The  estimate  which  all  par- 
ties had  formed  of  his  character  added  weight  to  every  word 
that  fell  from  him.  The  Whigs  called  him  haughty,  impla- 
cable, obstinate,  regardless  of  public  opinion.  The  Tories, 
while  they  extolled  his  princely  virtues,  had  often  lamented 
his  neglect  of  the  arts  which  conciliate  popularity.  Satire 
itself  had  never  represented  him  as  a  man  likely  to  court 
public  favor  by  professing  what  he  did  not  feel,  and  by  prom- 
ising what  he  had  no  intention  of  performing.  On  the  Sunday 
which  followed  his  accession,  his  speech  was  quoted  in  many 

*  See  the  authorities  cited  in  the  last  note.  See  also  the  Examen, 
647  ;  Burnet,  i.  620 ;  Higgons  on  Burnet. 

t  London  Gazette,  Feb.  14,  168$ ;  Evelyn's  Diary  of  the  same  day 
Burnet,  i.  610 ;  The  Hind  let  loose. 
TOL.  I.  30 


350  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

pulpits.  "  We  have  now  for  our  Church,"  cried  one  loyal 
preacher,  "  the  word  of  a  king,  and  of  a  king  who  was  never 
worse  than  his  word."  This  pointed  sentence  was  fast  circu- 
lated through  town  and  country,  and  was  soon  the  watchword 
of  the  whole  Tory  party.* 

The  great  offices  of  state  had  become  vacant  by  the  demise 
of  the  crown ;  and  it  was  necessary  for  James  to  determine 
how  they  should  be  filled.  Few  of  the  members  of  the  late 
cabinet  had  any  reason  to  expect  his  favor.  Sunderland,  who 
was  secretary  of  state,  and  Godolphin,  who  was  first  lord  of  the 
Treasury,  had  supported  the  Exclusion  Bill.  Halifax,  who 
held  the  privy  seal,  had  opposed  that  bill  with  unrivalled 
powers  of  argument  and  eloquence.  But  Halifax  was  the 
mortal  enemy  of  despotism  and  of  Popery.  He  saw  with  dread 
the  progress  of  the  French  arms  on  the  Continent,  and  the 
influence  of  French  gold  in  the  councils  of  England.  Had 
his  advice  been  followed,  the  laws  would  have  been  strictly 
observed ;  clemency  would  have  been  extended  to  the  van- 
quished Whigs ;  the  parliament  would  have  been  convoked  in 
due  season ;  an  attempt  would  have  been  made  to  reconcile 
our  domestic  factions ;  and  the  principles  of  the  Triple  Alli- 
ance would  again. have  guided  our  foreign  policy.  He  had 
therefore  incurred  the  bitter  animosity  of  James.  The  Lord 
Keeper  Guildford  could  hardly  be  said  to  belong  to  either  of 
the  parties  into  which  the  court  was  divided.  He  could  by  no 
means  be  called  a  friend  of  liberty ;  and  yet  he  had  so  great 
a  reverence  for  the  letter  of  the  law  that  he  was  not  a  service- 
able tool  of  arbitrary  power.  He  was  accordingly  designated 
by  the  vehement  Tories  as^a  Trimmer,  and  was  to  James  an 
object  of  aversion  with  which  contempt  was  largely  mingled. 
Ormond,  who  was  lord  steward  of  the  household,  and  Viceroy 
of  Ireland,  then  resided  at  Dublin.  His  claims  on  the  royal 
gratitude  were  superior  to  those  of  any  other  subject.  He  had 
fought  bravely  for  Charles  the  First ;  he  had  shared  the  exile 
of  Charles  the  Second  ;  and,  since  the  restoration,  he  had, 
in  spite  of  many  provocations,  kept  his  loyalty  unstained. 
Though  he  had  been  disgraced  during  the  predominance  of 
the  Cabal,  he  had  never  gone  into  factious  opposition,  and  had, 
in  the  days  of  the  Popish  Plot  and  the  Exclusion  Bill,  been 
foremost  among  the  supporters  of  the  throne.  He  was  now 
old,  and  had  been  recently  tried  by  the  most  crael  of  all 

•  Burnet,  i.  628  ;  L' Estrange,  Observator,  Feb.  11,  168f. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  351 

calamities.  He  had  followed  to  the  grave  a  son  who  should 
have  been  his  own  chief  mourner,  the  gallant  Ossory.  The 
eminent  services,  the  venerable  age,  and  the  domestic  misfor- 
tunes of  Ormond,  made  him  an  object  of  general  interest  to 
the  nation.  The  Cavaliers  regarded  him  as,  both  by  right  of 
seniority  and  right  of  merit,  their  head  ;  and  the  Whigs  knew 
that,  faithful  as  he  had  always  been  to  the  cause  of  monarchy, 
he  was  no  friend  either  to  despotism  or  to  Popery.  But,  high 
as  he  stood  in  the  public  estimation,  he  had  little  favor  to  ex- 
pect from  his  new  master.  James,  indeed,  while  still  a  sub- 
ject, had  urged  his  brother  to  make  a  complete  change  in  the 
Irish  administration.  Charles  had  assented  ;  and  it  had  been 
arranged  that,  in  a  few  months,  Rochester  should  be  appointed 
lord  lieutenant.* 

Rochester  was  the  only  member  of  the  cabinet  who  stood 
high  in  the  favor  of  the  new  king.  The  general  expectation 
was,  that  he  would  be  immediately  placed  at  the  head  of 
affairs,  and  that  all  the  other  great  officers  of  state  would  be 
changed.  This  expectation  proved  to  be  well  founded  in  part 
only.  Rochester  was  declared  lord  treasurer,  and  thus  be- 
came prime  minister.  Neither  a  lord  high  admiral  nor  a  board 
of  admiralty  was  appointed.  The  new  king,  who  loved  the 
details  of  naval  business  and  would  have  made  a  respectable 
clerk  in  the  dockyard  at  Chatham,  determined  to  be  his  own 
minister  of  marine.  Under  him  the  management  of  that  im- 
portant department  was  confided  to  Samuel  Pepys,  whose 
library  and  diary  have  kept  his  name  fresh  to  our  time.  No 
councillor  of  the  late  sovereign  was  publicly  disgraced.  Sun- 
derland  exerted  so  much  art  and  address,  employed  so  many 
intercessors,  and  was  in  possession  of  so  many  secrets,  that  he 
was  suffered  to  retain  his  seals.  Godolphin's  obsequiousness, 
industry,  experience,  and  taciturnity,  could  ill  be  spared.  As 
he  was  no  longer  wanted  at  the  Treasury,  he  was  made  cham- 
berlain to  the  queen.  With  these  three  lords  the  king  took 
counsel  on  all  important  questions.  As  to  Halifax,  Ormond, 
and  Guildford,  he  determined  not  yet  to  dismiss  them,  but 
merely  to  humble  and  annoy  them. 

Halifax  was  told  that  he  must  give  up  the  privy  seal  and 
accept  the  presidency  of  the  council.  He  submitted  with  ex- 
treme reluctance.  For,  though  the  president  of  the  counci 

*  The  letters  which  passed  between  Rochester  and  Ormond  on  thu 
subject  will  be  found  in  the  Clarendon  Correspondence. 


352  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  always  taken  precedence  of  the  lord  privy  seal,  the  lord 
privy  seal  was,  in  that  age,  a  much  more  important  officer  than 
the  lord  president.  Rochester  had  not  forgotten  the  jest  which 
had  been  made  a  few  months  befoie  on  his  own  removal  from 
the  Treasury,  and  enjoyed  in  his  turn  the  pleasure  of  kicking 
his  rival  up  stairs.  The  privy  seal  was  delivered  to  Rochester's 
elder  brother,  Edward  Earl  of  Clarendon. 

To  Barrillon  James  expressed  the  strongest  dislike  of  Hali- 
fax. "  I  know  him  well ;  I  never  can  trust  him.  He  shall 
have  no  share  in  the  management  of  public  business.  As 
to  the  place  which  I  have  given  him,  it  will  just  serve  to 
show  how  little  influence  he  has."  But  to  Halifax  it  was 
thought  convenient  to  hold  a  very  different  language.  "  All 
the  past  is  forgotten,"  said  the  king,  "  except  the  service  which 
you  did  me  in  the  debate  on  the  Exclusion  Bill."  This 
speech  has  often  been  cited  to  prove  that  James  was  not  so 
vindictive  as  he  has  been  called  by  his  enemies.  It  seems 
rather  to  prove  that  he  by  no  means  deserved  the  praises 
which  have  been  bestowed  on  his  sincerity  by  his  friends.* 

Ormond  was  politely  informed  that  his  services  were  no 
longer  needed  in  Ireland,  and  was  invited  to  repair  to  White- 
hall, and  to  perform  the  functions  of  lord  steward.  He  duti- 
fully submitted ;  but  did  not  affect  to  deny  that  the  new 
arrangement  wounded  his  feelings  deeply.  On  the  eve  of  his 
departure  he  gave  a  magnificent  banquet  at  Kilmainham  Hos- 
pital, then  just  completed,  to  the  officers  of  the  garrison  of 
Dublin.  After  dinner  he  rose,  filled  a  goblet  to  the  brim  with 
wine,  and,  holding  it  up,  asked  whether  he  had  spilt  one  drop. 
"  No,  gentlemen ;  whatever  the  courtiers  may  say,  I  am  not 
yet  sunk  into  dotage.  My  hand  does  not  fail  me  yet ;  and  my 
hand  is  not  steadier  than  my  heart.  To  the  health  of  King 
James  !  "  Such  was  the  last  farewell  of  Ormond  to  Ireland. 
He  left  the  administration  in  the  hands  of  lords  justices,  and 
repaired  to  London,  where  he  was  received  with  unusual 
marks  of  public  respect.  Many  persons  of  rank  went  forth 
to  meet  him  on  the-road.  A  long  train  of  equipages  followed 
him  into  Saint  James's  Square,  where  his  mansion  stood  ;  and 
the  square  was  thronged  by  a  multitude  which  greeted  him 
with  loud  acclamations.t 

*  The  ministerial  changes  are  announced  in  the  London  Gazette, 
Feb.  19,  168|.     See  Burnet,  i.  621 ;  Barillon,  Feb.  TV  £$,  and  ^^J, 
t  Carte's  Life  of  Orraond;  Memoirs  of  Ireland,  1716. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  353 

The  great  seal  was  left  :n  Guildford's  custody.  But  a 
marked  indignity  was  at  the  same  time  offered  to  him.  It 
was  determined  that  another  lawyer  of  more  vigor  and  audacity 
should  be  called  to  assist  in  the  administration.  The  person 
selected  was  Sir  George  Jeffreys,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench.  The  depravity  of  this  man  has  passed  into 
a  proverb.  Both  the  great  English  parties  have  attacked  his 
memory  with  emulous  violence  ;  for  the  Whigs  considered 
him  as  their  most  barbarous  enemy ;  and  the  Tories  found 
it  convenient  to  throw  on  him  the  blame  of  all  the  crimes 
which  had  sullied  their  triumph.  A  diligent  and  candid  in- 
quiry will  show  that  some  frightful  stories  which  have  been 
told  concerning  him  are  false  or  exaggerated.  Yet  the  dis- 
passionate historian  will  be  able  to  make  very  little  deduction 
from  the  vast  mass  of  infamy  with  which  the  memory  of  the 
wicked  judge  has  been  loaded. 

He  was  a  man  of  quick  and  vigorous  parts,  but  constitu- 
tionally prone  to  insolence  and  to  the  angry  passions.  When 
just  emerging  from  boyhood  he  had  risen  into  practice  at  the 
Old  Bailey  bar,  a  bar  where  advocates  have  always  used  a 
license  of  tongue  unknown  in  Westminster  Hall.  Here, 
during  many  years,  his  chief  business  was  to  examine  and 
cross  examine  the  most  hardened  miscreants  of  a  great  capital. 
Daily  conflicts  with  prostitutes  and  thieves  called  out  and  exer- 
cised his  powers  so  effectually  that  he  became  the  most  con- 
summate bully  ever  known  in  his  profession.  All  tenderness 
for  the  feelings  of  others,  all  self-respect,  all  sense  of  the  be- 
coming, were  obliterated  from  his  mind.  He  acquired  a 
boundless  command  of  the  rhetoric  in  which  the  vulgar  ejcpress 
hatred  and  contempt.  The  profusion  of  maledictions  and 
vituperative  epithets  which  composed  his  vocabulary  could 
hardly  have  been  rivalled  in  the  fish  market  or  the  bear  gar- 
den. His  countenance  and  his  voice  must  always  have  been 
unamiable.  But  these  natural  advantages  —  for  such  he 
seems  to  have  thought  them  —  he  had  improved  to  such  a 
degree  that  there  were  few  who,  in  his  paroxysms  of  rage, 
could  see  or  hear  him  without  emotion.  Impudence  and 
ferocity  sate  upon  his  brow.  The  glare  of  his  eyes  had  a 
fascination  for  the  unhappy  victim  on  whom  they  were  fixed. 
Yet  his  brow  and  eye  were  said  to  be  less  terrible  than  the 
savage  lines  of  his  mouth.  His  yell  of  fury,  as  was  said  by 
one  who  had  often  heard  it,  sounded  like  the  ihunder  of  the 
judgment  day.  These  qualifications  he  carried  while  still  a 
30* 


354  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

young  man,  from  the  bar  to  the  bench.  He  early  became 
common  serjeant  and  then  recorder  of  London.  As  a  judge 
at  the  City  sessions  he  exhibited  the  same  propensities  which 
afterwards,  in  a  higher  post,  gained  for  him  an  unenviable  im- 
mortality. Already  might  be  remarked  in  him  the  most  odioui 
vice  which  is  incident  to  human  nature,  a  delight  in  misery 
merely  as  misery.  There  was  a  fierdish  exultation  in  the 
way  in  which  he  pronounced  sentence  on  offenders.  Theii 
weeping  and  imploring  seemed  to  titillate  him  voluptuously  •, 
and  he  loved  to  scare  them  into  fits  by  dilating  with  luxuriant 
amplification  on  all  the  details  of  what  they  were  to  suffer. 
Thus,  when  he  had  an  opportunity  of  ordering  an  unlucky 
adventuress  to  be  whipped  at  the  cart's  tail,  "  Hangman,"  he 
would  exclaim,  "  I  charge  you  to  pay  particular  attention  to 
this  Irdy  !  Scourge  her  soundly,  man  !  Scourge  her  till  the 
blood  runs  down  !  It  is  Christmas,  a  cold  time  for  Madam  to 
strip  <n  !  See  that  you  warm  her  shoulders  thoroughly  ! "  * 
He  wis  hardly  less  facetious  when  he  passed  judgment  on 
poor  Ludowick  Muggleton,  the  drunken  tailor  who  fancied 
hims*  If  a  prophet.  "  Impudent  rogue  !  "  roared  Jeffreys, 
"  thou  shalt  have  an  easy,  easy,  easy  punishment ! "  One 
part  of  this  easy  punishment  was  the  pillory,  in  which  the 
wrenched  fanatic  was  almost  killed  with  brickbats.t 

By  this  time  the  nature  of  Jeffreys  had  been  hardened  to 
that  temper  which  tyrants  require  in  their  worst  implements. 
He  had  hitherto  looked  for  professional  advancement  to  the 
corporation  of  London.  He  had  therefore  professed  himself 
a  Roundhead,  and  had  always  appeared  to  be  in  a  higher 
state  of  exhilaration  when  he  explained  to  Popish  priests  thai 
tney  were  to  be  cut  down  tilive,  and  were  to  see  their  own 
bowels  burned,  than  when  he  passed  ordinary  sentences  of 
death.  But,  as  soon  as  he  had  got  all  that  the  city  could  give, 
he  made  haste  to  sell  his  forehead  of  brass  and  his  tongue  of 
venom  to  the  court.  Chiffinch,  who  was  accustomed  to  act  as 
broker  in  infamous  contracts  of  more  than  one  kind,  lent  his 
aid.  He  had  conducted  many  amorous  and  many  political 
intrigues ;  but  he  assuredly  never  rendered  a  more  scanda- 
lous service  to  his  masters  than  when  he  introduced  Jeffreys 

*  Christmas  Sessions  Paper  of  1678. 

t  The  Acts  of  the  Witnesses  of  the  Spirit,  part  v.  chapter  v.  In  this 
work  Ludowick,  after  his  fashion,  revenges  himself  on  the  "  bawling 
devil,"  as  lie  calls  Jeffreys,  by  a  string  of  curses  which  Ernulphus 
might  have  envied.  The  trial  -vras  in  January,  1677. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND  365 

to  Whitehall.  The  renegade  scon  found  a  patron  in  the  obdu- 
rate and  revengeful  James,  but  was  always  regarded  with 
scorn  and  disgust  by  Charles,  whose  faults,  great  as  they  were, 
had  no  affinity  with  insolence  and  cruelty.  "  That  man," 
said  the  king,  "  has  no  learning,  no  sense,  no  manners,  and 
more  impudence  than  ten  carted  street-walkers."  *  Work 
was  to  be  done,  however,  which  could  be  trusted  to  no  man 
who  reverenced  law  or  was  sensible  of  shame  ;  and  thus 
Jeffreys,  at  an  age  at  which  a  barrister  thinks  himself  fortu- 
nate if  he  is  employed  to  lead  an  important  cause,  was  made 
Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench. 

His  enemies  could  not  deny  that  he  possessed  some  of  the 
qualities  of  a  great  judge.  His  legal  knowledge,  indeed,  was 
merely  such  as  he  had  picked  up  in  practice  of  no  very  high  kind. 
But  he  had  one  of  those  happily  constituted  intellects  which, 
across  labyrinths  of  sophistry  and  through  masses  of  imma- 
terial facts,  go  straight  to  the  true  point.  Of  his  intellect, 
however,  he  seldom  had  the  full  use.  Even  in  civil  causes 
his  malevolent  and  despotic  temper  perpetually  disordered  his 
judgment.  To  enter  his  court  was  to  enter  the  den  of  a  wild 
beast,  which  none  could  tame,  and  which  was  as  likely  to  be 
roused  to  rage  by  caresses  as  by  attacks.  He  frequently 
poured  forth  on  plaintiffs  and  defendants,  barristers  and  attor- 
neys, witnesses  and  jurymen,  torrents  of  frantic  abuse,  inter- 
mixed with  oaths  and  curses.  His  looks  and  tones  had  inspired 
terror  when  he  was  merely  a  young  advocate  struggling  into 
practice.  Now  that  he  was  at  the  head  of  the  most  formida- 
ble tribunal  in  the  realm,  there  were  few  indeed  who  did  not 
tremble  before  him.  Even  when  he  was  sober,  his  violence 
was  sufficiently  frightful.  But  in  general  his  reason  was 
overclouded  and  his  evil  passions  stimulated  by  the  fumes  of 
intoxication.  His  evenings  were  ordinarily  given  to  revelry. 
People  who  saw  him  only  over  his  bottle  would  have  supposed 
him  to  be  a  man  gross  indeed,  sottish,  and  addicted  to  low 
company  and  low  merriment,  but  social  and  good  humored. 
He  was  constantly  surrounded  on  such  occasions  by  buffoons 
selected,  for  the  most  part,  from  among  the  vilest  pettifoggers 
who  practised  before  him.  These  men  bantered  and  abused 
each  other  for  his  entertainment.  He  joined  in  their  ribald  talk, 
sang  catches  with  them,  and,  when  his  head  grew  hot,  hugged 

*  This  saying  is  to  be  found  in  many  contemporary  pamphlets. 
Vitus  Gates  was  never  tired  of  qxioting  it.  See  his  F.!x<av  (iaotlixi;. 


356  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

and  kissed  them  in  an  ecstasy  of  drunken  fondness.  But 
though  wine  at  fhst  seemed  to  soften  his  heart,  the  effect  a 
few  hours  later  was  very  different.  He  often  came  to  the 
judgment  seat,  having  kept  the  court  waiting  long,  and  yet 
having  but  half  slept  off  his  debauch,  his  cheeks  on  fire,  his 
eyes  staring  like  those  of  a  maniac.  When  he  was  in  this 
state,  his  boon  companions  of  the  preceding  night,  if  they 
were  wise,  kept  out  of  his  way ;  for  the  recollection  of  the 
familiarity  to-which  he  had  admitted  them  inflamed  his  ma- 
lignity; and  he  was  sure  to  take  every  opportunity  of  over- 
whelming them  with  execration  and  invective.  Not  the  least 
odious  of  his  many  odious  peculiarities  was  the  pleasure  which 
he  took  in  publicly  browbeating  and  mortifying  those  whom, 
in  his  fits  of  maudlin  tenderness,  he  had  encouraged  to  pr«- 
feume  on  his  favor. 

The  services  which  the  government  had  expected  from 
him  were  performed,  not  merely  without  flinching,  but  eager- 
ly and  triumphantly.  His  first  exploit  was  the  judicial  mur- 
der of  Algernon  Sidney.  What  followed  was  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  this  beginning.  Respectable  Tories  lamented  the 
disgrace  which  the  barbarity  and  indecency  of  so  great  a 
functionary  brought  upon  the  administration  of  justice.  But 
the  excesses  which  filled  such  men  with  horror  were  titles  to 
the  esteem  of  James.  Jeffreys,  therefore,  after  the  death  of 
Charles,  obtained  a  seat  in  the  cabinet  and  »a  peerage.  Thif. 
last  honor  was  a  signal  mark  of  royal  approbation.  For, 
since  the  judicial  system  of  the  realrh  had  been  remodelled 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  no  chief  justice  had  been  a  lord  of 
parliament.* 

Guildford  now  found  himself  superseded  in  all  his  polit- 
ical functions,  and  restricted  to  his  business  as  a  judge  in 
equity.  At  council  he  was  treated  by  Jeffreys  with  marked 
incivility.  The  whole  legal  patronage  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  chief  justice  ;  and  it  was  well  known  by  the  bar  that  the 

*  The  chief  sources  of  information  concerning  Jeffreys  are  the 
State  Trials  and  North's  Life  of  Lord  Guildford.  Some  touches  of 
minor  importance  I  owe  to  contemporary  pamphlets  in  verse  and 
prose.  Such  arc  the  Bloody  Assizes,  the  Life  and  Death  of  George 
Lord  Jeffreys,  the  Panegyric  on  the  late  Lord  Jeffreys,  the  Letter 
to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  Jeffrcys's  Elegy.  See  also  Evelyn's  Diary, 
Dec.  6,  1683,  Oct.  31,  1685.  I  scarcely  need  advise  every  reader  tu 
consult  Lord  Campbell's  excellent  book. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  357 

surest  way  to  propitiate  the  chief  justice  was  tc  *reat  the  lord 
keeper  with  disrespect. 

James  had  not  been  many  hours  king  when  a  dispute  arose 
between  the  two  heads  of  the  law.  The  custcms  had  been 
settled  on  Charles  only  for  life,  and  could  not  therefore  be 
legally  exacted  by  the  new  sovereign.  Some  weeks  must 
elapse  before  a  House  of  Commons  could  be  chosen.  If,  in 
the  mean  time,  the  duties  were  suspended,  the  revenue  would 
suffer  ;  the  regular  course  of  trade  would  be  interrupted ;  the 
consumer  would  derive  no  benefit ;  and  the  only  gainers 
would  be  those  fortunate  speculators  whose  cargoes  might 
happen  to  arrive  during  the  interval  between  the  demise  of 
the  crown  and  the  meeting  of  the  parliament.  The  Treas- 
ury was" besieged  by  merchants  whose  warehouses  were  filled 
with  goods  on  which  duty  had  been  paid,  and  who  were  in 
grievous  apprehension  of  being  undersold  and  ruined.  Im- 
partial men  must  admit  that  this  was  one  of  those  cases  in 
which  a  government  may  be  justified  in  deviating  from  the 
strictly  constitutional  course.  But,  when  it  is  necessary  to 
deviate  from  the  strictly  constitutional  course,  the  deviation 
clearly  ought  to  be  no  greater  than  the  necessity  requires. 
Guildford  felt  this,  and  gave  advice  which  did  him  honor. 
He  proposed  that  the  duties  should  be  levied,  but  should  be 
kept  in  the  Exchequer  apart  from  other  sums  till  the  parlia- 
ment should  meet.  In  this  way  the  king,  while  violating  the 
letter  of  the  laws,  would  show  that  he  wished  to  conform  to 
their  spirit.  Jeffreys  gave  very  different  counsel.  He  ad- 
vised James  to  put  forth  an  edict  declaring  it  to  be  his  majes- 
ty's will  and  pleasure  that  the  customs  should  continue  to 
be  paid.  This  advice  was  well  suited  to  the  king's  temper. 
The  judicious  proposition  of  the  lord  keeper  was  rejected  as 
worthy  only  of  a  Whig,  or  of  what  was  still  worse,  a  Trimmer. 
A  proclamation,  such  as  the  chief  justice  had  suggested, 
appeared.  Some  people  expected  that  a  violent  outbreak  of 
public  indignation  would  be  the  consequence ;  but  they  were 
deceived.  The  spirit  of  opposition  had  not  yet  revived  ;  and 
the  court  might  safely  venture  to  take  steps  which,  five  years 
before,  would  have  produced  a  rebellion.  In  the  city  of  Lon- 
don, lately  so  turbulent,  scarcely  a  murmur  was  heard.* 

The  proclamation,  which  announced  that  the  customs  would 

*  London  Gazette,  Feb.  12,  168f.  North's  Life  of  Guildford, 
264. 


358  HISTORY    OK     ENGLAND. 

still  be  levied,  announced  also  that  a  parliarront  would  short 
ly  meet.  It  was  not  without  many  misgivings  that  James  had 
determined  to  call  the  Estates  of  his  realm  together.  The 
moment  was,  indeed,  most  auspicious  for  a  general  election. 
Never  since  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Stuart  had  the 
constituent  bodies  been  so  favorably  disposed  towards  the 
court.  But  the  new  sovereign's  mind  was  haunted  by  an 
apprehension  not  to  be  mentioned,  even  at  this  distance  of 
time,  without  shame  and  indignation.  He  was  afraid  that  by 
summoning  the  parliament  of  England  he  might  incur  the 
displeasure  of  the  King  of  France. 

To  the  King  of  France  it  mattered  little  which  of  the  two 
English  parties  triumphed  at  the  elections ;  for  all  the  par- 
liaments which  had  met  since  the  Restoration,  whatever  might 
have  been  their  temper  as  to  domestic  politics,  had  been  jeal- 
ous of  the  growing  power  of  the  House  of  Bourbon.  On  this 
subject  there  was  little  difference  between  the  Whigs  and  the 
sturdy  country  gentlemen  who  formed  the  main  strength  of 
the  Tory  party.  Lewis  had  therefore  spared  neither  bribes 
nor  menaces  to  prevent  Charles  from  convoking  the  Houses ; 
and  James,  who  had  from  the  first  been  in  the  secret  of  his 
brother's  foreign  politics,  had  now,  in  becoming  King  of  Eng- 
land, become  also  a  hireling  and  vassal  of  Lewis. 

Rochester,  Godolphin,  and  Sunderland,  who  now  formed 
the  interior  cabinet,  were  perfectly  aware  that  their  late  mas- 
ter had  been  in  the  habit  of  receiving  money  from  the  court 
of  Versailles.  They  were  consulted  by  James  as  to  the  ex- 
pediency of  convoking  the  legislature.  They  owned  the  great 
importance  of  keeping  Lewis  in  good  humor ;  but  it  seemed 
to  them  that  the  calling  of  a  parliament  was  not  a  matter  of 
choice.  Patient  as  the  nation  appeared  to  be,  there  were 
limits  to  its  patience.  The  principle  that  the  money  of  the 
subject  could  not  be  lawfully  taken  by  the  king  without  the 
assent  of  the  Commons,  was  firmly  rooted  in  the  public  mind  ; 
and  though,  on  an  extraordinary  emergency,  even  Whigs 
might  be  willing  to  pay,  during  a  few  weeks,  duties  not 
imposed  by  statute,  it  was  certain  that  even  Tories  would 
become  refractory  if  such  irregular  taxation  should  continue 
longer  than  the  special  circumstances  which  alone  justified 
it.  The  Houses  then  must  meet ;  and,  since  it  was  so,  the 
sooner  they  were  summoned  the  better.  Even  th;»  short  delay 
which  would  be  occasioned  by  a  reference  to  Versailles-  might 
produce  irreparable  mischief.  Discontent  and  suspicion  would 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  359 

spread  fast  through  society.  Halifax  would  complain  that 
the  fundamental  principles  of  the  constitution  were  violated. 
The  lord  keeper,  like  a  cowardly  pedantic  special  pleader  as 
he  was,  would  take  the  same  side.  What  might  have  been 
done  with  a  good  grace  would  at  last  be  done  with  a  bad 
grace.  Thos.e  very  ministers  whom  his  majesty  most  wished 
to  lower  in  the  public  estimation  would  gain  popularity  at  his 
expense.  The  ill  temper  of  the  nation  might  seriously  affect 
the  result  of  the  elections'.  These  arguments  were  unan- 
swerable. The  king  therefore  notified  to  the  country  his 
intention  of  holding  a  parliament.  But  he  was  painfully 
anxious  to  exculpate  himself  from  the  guilt  of  having  acted 
undutifully  and  disrespectfully  towards  France.  He  led 
Barillon  into  a  private  room,  and  there  apologized  for  having 
dared  to  take  so  important  a  step  without  the  previous  sanc- 
tion of  Lewis.  "  Assure  your  master,"  said  James,  "  of  my 
fratitude  and  attachment.  I  know  that  without  his  protection 
can  do  nothing.  I  know  what  troubles  my  brother  brought 
on  himself  by  not  adhering  steadily  to  France.  I  will  take 
good  care  not  to  let  the  Houses  meddle  with  foreign  affaiis. 
If  I  see  in  them  any  disposition  to  make  mischief,  I  will  send 
them  about  their  business.  Explain  this  to  my  good  brother. 
I  hope  that  he  will  not  take  it  amiss  that  I  have  acted  without 
consulting  him.  He  has  a  right  to  be  consulted ;  and  it  is 
my  wish  to  consult  him  about  every  thing.  But  in  this  case 
the  delay  even  of  a  week  might  have  produced  serious  con- 
sequences." 

These  ignominious  excuses  were,  on  the  following  morn- 
ing, repeated  by  Rochester.  Barillon  received  them  civilly. 
Rochester,  grown  bolder,  proceeded  to  ask  for  money.  "  It 
will  be  well  laid  out,"  he  said  ;  "  your  master  cannot  employ 
his  revenues  better.  Represent  to  him  strongly  how  important 
it  is  that  the  King  of  England  should  be  dependent,  not  on  his 
own  people,  but  on  the  friendship  of  France  alone."  * 

Barillon  hastened  to  communicate  to  Lewis  the  wishes  of 
the  English  government ;  but  Lewis  had  already  anticipated 
them.  His  first  act,  after  he  was  apprized  of  the  death  of 
Charles,  was  to  collect  bills  of  exchange  on  England  to  the 

*  The  chief  authority  for  these  transactions  13  Barill'm's  despatch 
of  Feb.  -^g,  1C85.  It  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix  to  Mr.  Fox's 
History.  See  also  Preston's  etter  to  James,  dated  April  £f,  1685,  in 
Dalmmile 


360  HISTORY   OP    ENGLAND. 

amount  of  five  hundred  thousand  livres,  a  sum  equivalent  te 
about  thirty-seven  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  sterling. 
Such  bills  were  not  then  to  be  easily  procured  in  Paris  at  a 
day's  notice.  In  a  few  hours,  however,  the  purchase  was 
effected,  and  a  courier  started  for  London.*  As  soon  as  Ba- 
rillon  received  the  remittance,  he  flew  to  Whitehall,  and  com- 
municated the  welcome  news.  James  was  not  ashamed  to 
shed,  or  pretend  to  shed,  tears  of  delight  and  gratitude. 
"  Nobody  but  your  king,"  he  said, "  does  such  kind,  such  noble 
things.  I  never  can  be  grateful  enough.  Assure  him  that 
my  attachment  will  last  to  the  end  of  my  days."  Roches- 
ter, Sunderland,  and  Godolphin  came,  one  after  another,  to 
embrace  the  ambassaior,  and  to  whisper  to  him  that  he  had 
given  new  life  to  their  royal  master.t 

But  though  James  and  his  three  advisers  were  pleased  with 
the  promptitude  which  Lewis  had  shown,  they  were  by  no 
means  satisfied  with  the  amount  of  the  donation.  As  they 
were  afraid,  however,  that  they  might  give  offence  by  impor- 
tunate mendicancy,  they  merely  hinted  their  wishes.  They 
declared  that  they  had  no  intention  of  higgling  with  so  gen 
erous  a  benefactor  as  the  French  king,  and  that  they  were 
willing  to  trust  entirely  to  his  munificence.  They,  at  the  same 
time,  attempted  to  propitiate  him  by  a  large  sacrifice  of  national 
honor.  It  was  well  known  that  one  chief  end  of  his  politics 
was  to  add  the  Belgian  provinces  to  his  dominions.  England 
was  bound  by  a  treaty,  which  had  been  concluded  with  Spain 
when  Danby  was  lord  treasurer,  to  resist  any  attempt  which 
France  might  make  on  those  provinces.  The  three  ministers 
informed  Barillon  that  their  master  considered  that  treaty  as 
no  longer  obligatory.  It  had  been  made,  they  said,  by  Charles ; 
it  might,  perhaps,  have  been  binding  on  him  ;  but  his  brother 
did  not  think  himself  bound  by  it.  The  most  Christian  king 
might,  therefore,  without  any  fear  of  opposition  from  England, 
proceed  to  annex  Brabant  and  Hainault  to  his  empire.^ 

It  was  at  the  same  time  resolved  that  an  extraordinary  em- 
bassy should  be  sent  to  assure  Lewis  of  the  gratitude  and 
affection  of  James.  For  this  mission  was  selected  a  man  who 
did  not  as  yet  occupy  a  very  eminent  position,  but  whose 

•  Lewis  to  Barillon,  Feb.  £$,  1685. 
t  Barillon,  Feb.  £|,  1685. 
J  Ibid.  Feb.  £f,  1685. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  361 

renown,  strangely  made  up  of  infamy  and  glory,  filled,  at  a 
(ater  period,  the  whole  civilized  world. 

Soon  after  the  Restoration,  in  the  gay  and  dissolute  times 
celebrated  by  the  lively  pen  of  Hamilton,  James,  young  and 
ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  had  been  attracted  by  Ara- 
bella Churchill,  one  of  the  maids  of  honor  who  waited  on  his 
first  wife.  The  young  lady  was  not  beautiful ;  but  the  taste 
of  James  was  not  nice ;  and  she  became  his  avowed  mistress. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  a  poor  Cavalier  baronet  who  haunted 
Whitehall  and  made  himself  ridiculous  by  publishing  a  dull 
and  affected  folio,  long  forgotten,  in  praise  of  monarchy  and 
monarchs.  The  necessities  of  the  Churchills  were  pressing  ; 
their  loyalty  was  ardent ;  and  their  only  feeling  about  Ara- 
bella's seduction  seems  to  have  been  joyful  surprise  that  so 
plain  a  girl  should  have  attained  such  high  preferment. 

Her  interest  was  indeed  of  great  use  to  her  relations ;  but 
none  of  them  was  so  fortunate  as  her  eldest  brother  John,  a 
fine  youth,  who  carried  a  pair  of  colors  in  the  foot-guards. 
He  rose  fast  in  the  court  and  in  the  army,  and  was  early  dis 
tinguished  as  a  man  of  fashion  and  of  pleasure.  His  stature 
was  commanding,  his  face  handsome,  his  address  singuiarly 
winning,  yet  of  such  dignity  that  the  most  impertinent  fops 
never  ventured  to  take  any  liberty  with  him  ;  his  temper,  even 
in  the  most  vexatious  and  irritating  circumstances,  always 
under  perfect  command.  His  education  had  been  so  much 
neglected,  that  he  could  not  spell  the  most  common  words  of 
his  own  language ;  but  his  acute  and  vigorous  understanding 
amply  supplied  the  place  of  book  learning.  He  was  not  lo- 
quacious ;  but,  when  he  was  forced  to  speak  in  public,  his  nat- 
ural eloquence  moved  the  envy  of  practised  rhetoricians.  His 
courage  was  singularly  cool  and  imperturbable.  During  many 
years  of  anxiety  and  peril,  he  never,  in  any  emergency,  lost, 
even  for  a  moment,  the  perfect  use  of  his  admirable  judgment. 

In  his  twenty-third  year  he  was  sent  with  his  regiment  to 
•  join  the  French  forces,  then  engaged  in  operations  against 
Holland.      His  serene  intrepidity  distinguished   him   among 
thousands  of  brave  soldiers.     His  professional  skill  command- 
ed the  respect  of  veteran  officers.     He  was  publicly  thanked 
at  the  head  of  the  army,  and  received  many  marks  of  esteem 
and  confidence  from  Turenne,  who  was  then  at  the  height  of 
'  military  glory. 

Unhappily  the  splendid  qualities  of  John  Churchill  were 
mingled  with  alloy  of  the  most  sordid  kind.     Some  propensi- 
VOL.  i.  31 


362  HISTORY    OF  .ENGLAND. 

ties,  which  in  youth  are  singularly  ungraceful,  began  very 
early  to  show  themselves  in  him.  He  was  thrifty  in  his  very 
vices,  and  levied  ample  contributions  on  ladies  enriched  by  the 
spoils  of  more  liberal  lovers.  He  was,  during  a  short  time, 
the  object  of  the  violent  but  fickle  fondness  of  the  Duchess  of 
Cleveland.  On  one  occasion  he  was  caught  with  her  by  the 
king,  and  was  forced  to  leap  out  of  the  window.  She  reward- 
ed this  hazardous  feat  of  gallantry  with  a  present  of  five 
thousand  pounds.  ^Vith  this  sum  the  prudent  young  hero 
instantly  bought  an  annuity  of  five  hundred  a  year,  well 
secured  on  landed  property.*  Already  his  private  drawers 
contained  heaps  of  broad  pieces,  which,  fifty  years  later,  when 
he  was  a  duke,  a  prince  of  the  empire,  and  the  richest  subject 
in  Europe,  remained  untouched.! 

After  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  attached  to  the  household 
of  the  Duke  of  York,  accompanied  his  patron  to  the  Low 
Countries  and  to  Edinburgh,  and  was  rewarded  for  his  services 
with  a  Scotch  peerage  and  with  the  command  of  the  only 
regiment  of  dragoons  which  was  then  on  the  English  estab- 
lishment.^ His  wife  had  a  post  in  the  family  of  James's 
younger  daughter,  the  Princess  of  Denmark. 

Lord  Churchill  was  now  sent  as  ambassador  extraordinary 
to  Versailles.  He  had  it  in  charge  to  express  the  warm  grat- 
itude of  the  English  government  for  the  money  which  had 
been  so  generously  bestowed.  It  had  been  originally  intended 
that  he  should,  at  the  same  time,  ask  Lewis  for  a  much  larger 
sum  ;  but,  on  full  consideration,  it  was  apprehended  that  such 

•  Dartmouth's  note  on  Burnet,  i.  264.  Chesterfield's  Letters, 
Nov.  18,  17^8.  Chesterfield  is  an  unexceptionable  witness;  for  the 
annuity  was  a  charge  on  the  estate  of  his  grandfather,  Halifax.  I 
hope  that  there  is  no  truth  in  an  addition  to  the  story  which  may  be 
found  in  Pope :  — 

"  The  gallant,  too,  to  whom  she  paid  it  down, 
Lived  to  refuse  his  mistress  half  a  crown." 
Curll  calls  this  a  piece  of  travelling  scandal, 
t  Pope  in  Spence's  Anecdotes. 

j  See  the  Historical  Records  of  the  First  or  Royal  Dragoons.    The 
appointment  of  Churchill  to  the  command  of  this  regiment  was 
ridiculed  as  an  instance  of  absurd  partiality.     One  lampoon  of  that 
time,  which  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  in  print,  but  of  -which  « 
manuscript  copy  is  at  the  British  Museum,  contains  these  line*  :  — 
"  Let's  cut  our  meat  with  spoons  : 
The  sense  is  as  good 
As  that  Churchill  should 
Be  put  to  command  the  dragoon*." 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  363 

Indelicate  greediness  might  disgust  i-ne  benefactor  whose  spon- 
taneous liberality  had  been  so  signally  displayed.  Churchill 
was  therefore  directed  to  confine  himself  to  thanks  for  what 
was  past,  and  to  say  nothing  about  the  future.* 

But  James  and  his  ministers,  even  while  protesting  that  they 
did  not  mean  to  be  importunate,  contrived  to  hint,  very  intel- 
ligibly, what  they  wished  and  expected.  In  the  French  am 
bassador  they  had  a  dexterous,  a  zealous,  and,  perhaps,  not  a 
disinterested  intercessor.  Lewis  made  some  difficulties,  proba- 
bly with  the  design  of  enhancing  the  value  of  his  gifts.  In  a 
very  few  weeks,  however,  Barillon  received  from  Versailles 
fifteen  hundred  thousand  livres  more.  This  sum,  equivalent 
to  about  a  hundred  and  twelve  thousand  pounds  sterling,  he 
was  instructed  to  dole  out  cautiously.  He  was  authorized  to 
furnish  the  English  government  with  thirty  thousand  pounds, 
for  the  purpose  of  corrupting  members  of  the  new  House  of 
Commons.  The  rest  he  was  directed  to  keep  in  reserve  for 
some  extraordinary  emergency,  such  as  a  dissolution  or  an 
insurrection.! 

The  turpitude  of  these  transactions  is  universally  acknowl- 
edged ;  but  their  real  nature  seems  to  be  often  misunderstood  ; 
for,  though  the  foreign  policy  of  the  two  last  kings  of  the 
House  of  Stuart  has  never,  since  the  correspondence  of  Baril- 
lon was  exposed  to  the  public  eye,  found  an  apologist  among 
us,  there  is  still  a  party  which  labors  to  excuse  their  domestic 
policy.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  between  their  domestic  policy 
and  their  foreign  policy  there  was  a-  necessary  and  indissoluble 
connection.  If  they  had  upheld,  during  but  a  few  months,  the 
honor  of  the  country  abroad,  they  would  have  been  compelled 
to  change  the  whole  system  of  their  administration  at  home. 
To  praise  them  for  refusing  to  govern  in  conformity  with  the 
sense  of  parliament,  and  yet  to  blame  them  for  submitting  to 
the  dictation  of  Lewis,  is  inconsistent.  For  they  had  only  one 
choice,  to  be  dependent  on  Lewis,  or  to  be  dependent  on  par- 
liament. 

James,  to  do  him  justice,  would  gladly  have  found  out  a 
third  way;  but  there  was  none.  He  became  the  slave  of 
France  ;  but  it  would  be  incorrect  to  represent  him  as  a  con- 
tented slave.  He  had  spirit  enough  to  be  at  times  angry  with 
himself  for  submitting  to  such  thraldom,  and  impatient  to 

*  Barillon,  Feb.  ££,  1685. 

t  Barillon,  April  ^ ;  Lewis  to  Barillon,  April  ^J. 


364  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

break  loose  from  it ;  and  this  disposition  was  studiously  en 
couraged  by  the  agents  of  many  foreign  powers. 

His  accession  had  excited  hopes  and  fears  in  every  conti- 
nental court;  and  the  commencement  of  his  administration 
was  watched  by  strangers  with  interest  scarcely  less  deep  than 
that  which  was  felt  by  his  own  subjects.  One  government 
alone  wished  that  the  troubles  which  had,  during  three  gener- 
ations, distracted  England,  might  be  eternal.  All  other  gov- 
ernments, whether  republican  or  monarchical,  whether  Protes- 
tant or  Roman  Catholic,  wished  to  see  those  troubles  happily 
terminated. 

The  nature  of  the  long  contest  between  the  Stuarts  and  their 
parliaments  was  indeed  very  imperfectly  apprehended  by  for- 
eign statesmen ;  but  no  statesman  could  fail  to  perceive  the 
effect  which  that  contest  had  produced  on  the  balance  of  power 
in  Europe.  In  ordinary  circumstances,  the  sympathies  of  the 
courts  of  Vienna  and  Madrid  would  doubtless  have  been  with  a 
prince  struggling  against  subjects,  and  especially  with  a  Roman 
Catholic  prince  struggling  against  heretical  subjects ;  but  all  such 
sympathies  were  now  overpowered  by  a  stronger  feeling.  The 
fear  and  hatred  inspired  by  the  greatness,  the  injustice,  and 
the  arrogance,  of  the  French  king  were  at  the  height.  His 
neighbors  might  well  doubt  whether  it  were  more  dangerous 
to  be  at  war  or  at  peace  with  him.  For  in  peace  he  continued 
to  plunder  and  to  outrage  them  ;  and  they  had  tried  the 
chances  of  war  against  him  in  vain.  In  this  perplexity  they 
looked  with  intense  anxiety  towards  England.  Would  she  act 
on  the  principles  of  the  Triple  Alliance  or  on  the  principles 
of  the  treaty  of  Dover  ?  On  that  issue  depended  the  fate  of 
all  her  neighbors.  With  her  help  Lewis  might  yet  be  with- 
stood ;  but  no  help  could  be  expected  from  her  till  she  was  at 
unity  with  herself.  Before  the  strife  between  the  throne  and 
the  parliament  began,  she  had  been  a  power  of  the  first  rank ; 
on  the  day  on  which  that  strife  terminated,  she  became  a 
power  of  the  first  rank  again ;  but  while  the  dispute  remained 
undecided,  she  was  condemned  to  inaction  and  to  vassalage. 
She  had  been  great  under  the  Plantagenets  and  Tudors  ;  she 
was  again  great  under  the  princes  who  reigned  after  the  revo- 
ution ;  but,  under  the  kings  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  she  was 
a  blank  in  the  map  of  Europe.  She  had  lost  one  class  of 
energies,  and  had  not  yet  acquired  another.  That  species  of 
force  which,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  had  enabled  her  to 
humble  France  and  Spain  had  ceased  to  exist.  That  species 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  305 

of  force  which,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  humbled  France 
and  Spain  once  more  had  not  yet  been  called  into  action.  The 
government  was  no  longer  a  limited  monarchy  after  the 
fashion  of  the  middle  ages.  It  had  not  yet  become  a  limited 
monarchy  after  the  modern  fashion.  With  the  vices  of  two 
different  systems  it  had  the  strength  of  neither.  The  elements 
of  our  polity,  instead  of  combining  in  harmony,  counteracted 
and  neutralized  each  other.  All  was  transition,  conflict,  and 
disorder.  The  chief  business  of  the  sovereign  was  to  infringe 
the  privileges  of  the  legislature.  The  chief  business  of  the 
legislature  was  to  encroach  on  the  prerogatives  of  the  sov- 
ereign. The  king  readily  accepted  foreign  aid,  which  relieved 
him  from  the  misery  of  being  dependent  on  a  mutinous  par- 
liament. The  parliament  refused  to  the  king  the  means  of 
supporting  the  national  honor  abroad,  from  an  apprehension, 
too  well  founded,  that  those  means  might  be  employed  in 
order  to  establish  despotism  at  home.  The  effect  of  these 
'ealousies  was,  that  our  country,  with  all  her  vast  resources, 
was  of  as  little  account  in  Christendom  as  the  duchy  of  Savoy 
or  the  duchy  of  Lorraine,  and  certainly  of  far  less  account 
than  the  small  province  of  Holland. 

France  was  deeply  interested  in  prolonging  this  state  of 
things.*  All  other  powers  were  deeply  interested  in  bring- 
ing it  to  a  close.  The  general  wish  of  Europe  was,  that 
James  would  govern  in  conformity  with  law,  and  with  public 
opinion.  From  the  Escurial  itself  came  letters,  expressing 
an  earnest  hope  that  the  new  king  of  England  would  be  on 
good  terms  with  his  parliament  and  his  people.t  From  the 

*  I  might  transcribe  half  of  Barillon's  correspondence  in  proof  of 
this  ^proposition :  but  I  will  only  quote  one  passage,  in  which  the 
views  which  guided  the  policy  of  the  -French  government  towards 
England  are  exhibited  concisely  and  with  perfect  clearness*. 

"  On  peut  tenir  pour  un  maxime  indubitable  que  1'accord  du  Roy 
d'Angleterre  avec  son  parlement,  en  quelque  maniere  qu'il  se  fasse, 
n'est  pas  conforme  aux  interets  de  V.  M.  Je  me  contente  de  pcnser 
cela  sans  m'en  ouvrir  a  personne,  et  jo  cache  avec  soin  mes  sentimeiis 

FVh   28 

a  cet  egard."  —  Barillon  to  Lewis,  Ma  w,  1687.  That  this  was  the 
real  secret  of  the  whole  policy  of  Lewis  towards  our  country  was 
perfectly  understood  at  Vienna.  The  Emperor  Leopold  wrote  thus  to 
James,  ^"^f  >  1689.  "  Galli  id  unum  agebant,  ut,  perpetuas  inter 
Serenitatcm  vestram  et  ejusdem  populos  fovendo  simultates,  reliqua 
Christianse  Europse  tanto  securius  insultarent." 

t  "  Que  sea  unido  con  su  reyno,  y  en  todo  buena  inteligencia  con 
el  parlamento."  —  Despatch  from  the  King  of  Spnin  to  Don  Pedro 
31* 


3G(>  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND 

Vatican  itself  came  cautions  against  immoderate  zeal  for  the 
Roman  Catholic  faith.  Benedict  Odescalchi,  who  filled  the 
papal  chair  under  the  name  of  Innocent  the  Eleventh,  felt,  in 
his  character  of  temporal  sovereign,  all  those  apprehensions 
with  which  other  princes  watched  the  progress  of  the  French 
power.  He  had  also  grounds  of  uneasiness  which  were 
peculiar  to  himsalf.  It  was  a  happy  circumstance  for  the 
Protestant  religion  that,  at  the  moment  when  the  last  Roman 
Catholic  King  of  England  mounted  the  throne,  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  was  torn  by  dissension,  and  threatened  with 
a  new  scm'sm.  A  quarrel  similar  to  that  which  raged  in  the 
eleventh  century  between  the  emperors  and  the  supreme 
pontiffs  had  arisen  between  Lewis  and  Innocent.  Lewis, 
zealous  even  to  bigotry  for  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  but  tenacious  of  his  regal  authority,  accused  .  the  pope 
of  encroaching  on  the  secular  rights  of  the  French  crown, 
and  was  in  turn  accused  by  the  pope  of  encroaching  on  the 
spiritual  power  of  the  keys.  The  king,  haughty  as  he  was, 
encountered  a  spirit  even  more  determined  than  his  own. 
Innocent  was,  in  all  private  relations,  the  meekest  and  gentlest 
of  men ;  but,  when  he  spoke  officially  from  the  chair  of  St. 
Peter,  he  spoke  in  the  tones  of  Gregory  the  Seventh  and  of 
Sixtus  the  Fifth.  The  dispute  became  serious.  Agents  of 
the  king  were  excommunicated.  Adherents  of  the  pope 
were  banished.  The  king  made  the  champions  of  his  authority 
bishops.  The  pope  refused  them  institution.  They  took 
possession  of  the  episcopal  palaces  and  revenues ;  but  they 
were  incompetent  to  perform  the  episcopal  functions.  Before 
the  struggle  terminated,  there  were  in  France  thirty  prelates 
who  could  not  confirm  or  ordain.* 

Had  any  prince  then  living,  except  Lewis,  been  engaged 
in  such  a  dispute  with  the  Vatican,  he  would  have  had  all 
Protestant  governments  on  his  side.  But  the  fear  and  resent- 
ment which  the  ambition  and  insolence  of  the  French  king 

Ronquillo,  March  ££,  1685.  This  despatch  is  in  ^he  archives  of 
Simancas,  which  contain  a  great  mass  of  papers  relating  to  English 
affairs.  Copies  of  the  most  interesting  of  those  papers  are  in  the 
possession  of  M.  Guizot,  and  were  by  him  lent  to  me.  It  is  with 
peculiar  pleasure  that,  at  this  time,  I  acknowledge  this  mark  of  the 
friendship  of  so  great  a  man. 

*  Few  English  readers  will  be  desirous  to  go  deep  into  the  history 
of  this  quarrel.  Summaries  will  be  found  in  Cardinal  Bausset's  Life 
of  Bosiuet,  and  in  Voltaire's  Age  of  Lewis  XIV. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  367 

had  inspired  were  such  that  whoever  had  the  courage  man- 
fully to  oppose  him  was  sure  of  public  sympathy.  Even 
Lutherans  and  Calvinists,  who  had  always  detested  the  pope, 
could  not  refrain  from  wishing  him  success  against  a  tyrant 
who  aimed  at  universal  monarchy.  It  was  thus  that,  in  the 
present  century,  many  who  regarded  Pius  the  Seventh  as 
Antichrist  were  well  pleased  to  see  Antichrist  confront  th& 
gigantic  power  of  Napoleon. 

The  resentment  which  Innocent  felt  towards  France,  dis- 
posed him  to  take  a  mild  and  liberal  view  of  the  affairs  of 
England.  The  return  of  the  English  people  to  the  fold 
of  which  he  was  the  shepherd  would  undoubtedly  have 
rejoiced  his  soul.  But  he  was  too  wise  a  man  to  believe  that 
a  nation  so  bold  and  stubborn  could  be  brought  back  to  the 
Church  of  Rome  by  the  violent  and  unconstitutional  exercise 
of  royal  authority.  It  was  not  difficult  to  foresee  that,  if 
James  attempted  to  promote  the  interests  of  his  religion  by 
illegal  and  unpopular  means,  the  attempt  would  fail ;  the 
hatred  with  which  the  heretical  islanders  regarded  the  true 
faith  would  become  fiercer  and  stronger  than  ever ;  and  an 
indissoluble  association  would  be  created  in  their  minds 
between  Protestantism  and  civil  freedom,  between  Popery  and 
arbitrary  power.  In  the  mean  time  the  king  would  be  an 
object  of  aversion  and  suspicion  to  his  people.  England 
would  still  be,  as  she  Rad  been  under  James  the  First,  under 
Charles  the  First,  and  under  Charles  the  Second,  a  power  of 
the  third  rank ;  and  France  would  domineer  unchecked 
beyond  the  Alps  and  the  Rhine.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
probable  that  James,  by  acting  with  prudence  and  moderation, 
by  strictly  observing  the  laws,  and  by  exerting  himself  to  win 
the  confidence  of  his  parliament,  might  be  able  to  obtain,  for 
the  professors  of  his  religion,  a  large  measure  of  relief.  Penal 
statutes  would  go  first.  Statutes  imposing  civil  incapacities 
would  soon  follow.  In  the  mean  time,  the  English  king  and 
the  English  nation  united  might  head  the  European  coalition, 
and  might  oppose  an  insuperable  barrier  to  the  cupidity  of 
Lewis. 

Innocent  was  confirmed  in  his  judgment  by  the  principal 
Englishmen  who  resided  at  his  court.  Of  these  the  most 
illustrious  was  Philip  Howard,  sprung  from  the  noblest  houses 
of  Britain,  grandson,  on  one  side,  of  an  Earl  of  Arundel,  on 
the  other  of  a  Duke  of  Lennox.  Philip  had  long  been  a 
member  of  the  sacred  college  ;  he  was  commonly  designated 


368  HISTORY    OF    IH^GLANB. 

as  the  Cardinal  of  England  ;  and  he  was  the  chief  counsel 
lor  of  the  Holy  See  in  matters  relating  to  his  country  Ho 
had  been  driven  into  exile  by  the  outcry  of  Protestant  big 
ots  ;  and  a  member  of  his  family,  the  unfortunate  Stafford J 
had  fallen  a  victim  to  their  rage.  But  neither  the  cardinal's 
own  wrongs,  nor  those  of  his  house,  had  so  heated  his  mind 
as  1o  make  him  a  rash  adviser.  Every  letter,  therefore, 
which  went  from  the  Vatican  to  Whitehall  recommended 
paaence,  moderation,  and  respect  for  the  prejudices  of  the 
English  people.* 

In  the  mind  of  James  there  was  a  great  conflict.  We 
should  do  him  injustice  if  we  supposed  that  a  state  of  vas- 
salage was  agreeable  to  his  temper.  He  loved  authority  and 
business.  He  had  a  high  sense  of  his  personal  dignity.  Nay, 
he  was  not  altogether  destitute  of  a  sentiment  which  bore 
some  affinity  to  patriotism.  It  galled  his  soul  to  think  that 
the  kingdom  which  he  ruled  was  of  far  less  account  in  the 
world  than  many  states  which  possessed  smaller  natural  advan- 
tages ;  and  he  listened  eagerly  to  foreign  ministers  when  they 
urged  him  to  assert  the  dignity  of  his  rank,  to  place  himself 
at  the  head  of  a  great  confederacy,  to  become  the  protector 
of  injured  nations,  and  to  tame  the  pride  of  that  power  which 
held  the  Continent  in  awe.  Such  exhortations  made  his  heart 
swell  with  emotions  unknown  to  his  careless  and  effeminate 
brother.  But  those  emotions  were  soon  subdued  by  a  stronger 
feeling.  A  vigorous  foreign  policy  necessarily  implied  a 
conciliatory  domestic  policy.  It1  was  impossible  at  once  to 
confront  the  might  of  France  and  to  trample  on  the  liberties 
of  England.  The  executive  government  could  undertake 
nothing  great  without  the  support  of  the  Commons,  and  could 
obtain  their  support  only  by  acting  in  conformity  with  their 
opinion.  Thus  James  found  that  the  two  things  which  he 
most  desired  could  not  be  possessed  together.  His  second 
wish  was  to  be  feared  and  respected  abroad.  But  his  first 
wish  was  to  be  absolute  master  at  home.  Between  the  in- 
compatible objects  on  which  his  heart  was  set,  he,  for  a  time 
went  irresolutely  to  and  fro.  The  struggle  in  his  own  breast 
gave  to  his  public  acts  a  strange  appearance  of  indecision  and 
insincerity.  Those  who,  without  the  clew,  attempted  to  explore 
the  maze  of  his  politics,  were  unable  to  understand  how  the 

*  Burnet,  i.  661,  and  Letter  from  Rome  ;  Dodd's  Church  History, 
part  viii.  booli  i.  art.  1.       , 


HISTOIIV    OF     ENGLAND.  369 

*ame  man  could  be,  in  the  same  week,  so  haughty  and  so 
mean.  Even  Lewis  was  perplexed  by  the  vagaries  of  an 
ally  who  passed,  in  a  few  hours,  from  homage  to  defiance 
and  from  defiance  to  homage.  Yet,  now  that  the  whole  con- 
duct of  James  is  before  us,  this  inconsistency  seems  to  admii 
of  a  simple  explanation. 

At  the  moment  of  his  accession  he  was  in  doubt  whether 
the  kingdom  would  peaceably  submit  to  his  authority.  The 
Exclusionists,  lately  so  powerful,  might  rise  in  arms  against 
him.  He  might  be  in  great  need  of  French  rnoney  and 
French  troops.  He  was  therefore,  during  some  days,  content 
co  be  a  sycophant  and  a  mendicant.  He  humbly  apologized 
for  daring  to  call  his  parliament  together  without  the  consent 
of  the  French  government.  He  begged  hard  for  a  French 
subsidy.  He  wept  with  joy  over  the  French  bills  of  exchange. 
He  sent  to  Versailles  a  special  embassy  charged  with  as- 
surances of  his  gratitude,  attachment,  and  submission.  But 
scarcely  had  the  embassy  departed  when  his  feelings  under- 
went a  change.  He  had  been  every  where  proclaimed  with- 
out one  riot,  without  one  seditious  outcry.  From  all  corners 
of  the  island  he  received  intelligence  that  his  subjects  were 
tranquil  and  obedient.  His  spirit  rose.  The  degrading 
relation  in  which  he  stood  to  a  foreign  power  seemed  intolera- 
ble. He  became  proud,  punctilious,  boastful,  quarrelsome. 
He  held  such  high  language  about  the  dignity  of  his  crown 
and  the  balance  of  power  that  his  whole  court  fully  expected 
a  complete  revolution  in  the  foreign  politics  of  the  realm. 
He  commanded  Churchill  to  send  a  minute  report  of  the 
ceremonial  of  Versailles,  in  order  that  the  honors  with  which 
the  English  embassy  was  received  there  might  be  repaid,  and 
not  more  than  repaid,  to  the  representative  of  France  at 
Whitehall.  The  news  of  this  change  was  received  with 
delight  at  Madrid,  Vienna,  and  the  Hague.*  Lewis  was  at 
first  merely  diverted.  "  My  good"  ally  talks  big,"  he  said  ; 
"  but  he  is  as  fond  of  my  pistoles  as  ever  his  brother  was." 
Soon,  however,  the  altered  demeanor  of  James,  and  the 
hopes  with  which  that  demeanor  inspired  both  the  branches 
of  the  House  of  Austria,  began  to  call  for  more  serious  notice. 
A  remarkable  letter  is  still  extant,  in  which  the  French  king 
intimated  a  strong  suspicion  that  he  had  been  duped,  and  that 

*  Consultations  of  the  Spanish.  Council  of  State  on  April,  -f^-  and 
April  £f ,  168-5,  in  the  archives  of  Simancas. 
31* 


370  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  very  money  which  he  had  sent  to  Westminster  would  be 
employed  against  him.* 

By  this  time  England  had  recovered  from  the  sadness  and 
anxiety  caused  by  the  death  of  the  good  natured  Charles. 
The  Tories  were  loud  in  professions  of  attachment  to  their 
new  master.  The  hatred  of  the  Whigs  was  kept  down  by 
fear.  That  great  mass  which  is  not  steadily  Whig  or  Tory, 
but  which  inclines  alternately  to  Whiggism  and  to  Toryism, 
was  still  on  the  Tory  side.  The  reaction  which  had  followed 
the  dissolution  of  the  Oxford  parliament  had  not  yet  spent  its 
force. 

The  king  early  put  the  loyalty  of  his  Protestant  friends  to 
the  proof.  While  he  was  a  subject  he  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  hearing  mass  with  closed  doors  in  a  small  oratory  which 
had  been  fitted  up  for  his  wife.  He  now  ordered  the  doors  to 
be  thrown  open,  in  order  that  all  who  came  to  pay  their  duty 
to  him  might  see  the  ceremony.  When  the  host  was  elevated 
there  was  a  strange  confusion  in  the  antechamber.  The  Ro- 
man Catholics  fell  on  their  knees :  the  Protestants  hurried  out 
of  the  room.  Soon  a  new  pulpit  was  erected  in  the  palace  ; 
and,  during  Lent,  a  series  of  sermons  was  preached  there  by 
Popish  divines,  to  the  great  discomposure  of  zealous  Church- 
men.t 

A  more  serious  innovation  followed.  Passion  week  came  ; 
and  the  king  determined  to  hear  mass  with  the  same  pomp 
with  which  his  predecessors  had  been  surrounded  when  they 
repaired  to  the  temples  of  the  established  religion.  He  an- 
nounced his  intention  to  the  three  members  of  the  interior  cab- 
inet, and  requested  them  to  attend  him.  Sunderland,  to  whom 
all  religions  were  the  same,  readily  consented.  Godolphin,  «>s 
chamberlain  of  the  queen,  had  already  been  in  the  habit  of 
giving  her  his  hand  when  she  repaired  to  her  oratory,  and  felt 
no  scruple  about  bowing  himself  officially  in  the  house  of  Rim- 
ojon.  But  Rochester  was  greatly  disturbed.  His  influence  in  the 
country  arose  chiefly  from  the  opinion  entertained  by  the  cler- 
gy and  by  the  Tory  gentry,  that  he  was  a  zealous  and  uncom- 
promising friend  of  the  Church.  His  orthodoxy  had  been 
considered  as  fully  atoning  for  faults  Avhich  would  otherwise 

•  Lewis  to  Barillon,  5£L??  i685 :  Burnet,  i.  623. 

'     June  1  • 

t  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  5 ;  BarUlon,  ^j-^,  1685  ; 
Brelyn'B  Diary,  March  5,  168$ . 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND  371 

have  made  him  the  most  unpopular  man  in  the  kingdom,  foi 
boundless  arrogance,  for  extreme  violence  of  temper,  and  for 
manners  almost  brutal.*  He  feared  that,  by  complying  with 
the  royal  wishes,  he  should  greatly  lower  himself  in  the  esti- 
mation of  his  party.  After  some  altercation  he  obtained  per- 
mission to  pass  the  holidays  out  of  town.  All  the  other  great 
civil  dignitaries  were  ordered  to  be  at  their  posts  on  Easter 
Sunday.  The  rites  of  the  Church  of  Rome  were  once  more, 
after  an  interval  of  a  hundred  and  twenty-seven  years,  per- 
formed  at  Westminster  with  regal  splendor.  The  guards  were 
drawn  out.  The  knights  of  the  garter  wore  their  collars. 
The  Duke  of  Somerset,  second  in  rank  'among  the  temporal 
nobles  of  the  realm,  carried  the  sword  of  state.  A  long  train 
of  great  lords  accompanied  the  king  to  his  seat.  But  it  was 
remarked  that  Ormond  and  Halifax  remained  in  the  antecham- 
ber. A  few  years  before  they  had  gallantly  defended  the 
cause  of  James  against  some  of  those  who  now  pressed  past 
them.  Ormond  had  borne  no  share  in  the  slaughter  of  Ro- 
man Catholics.  Halifax  had  courageously  pronounced  Staf- 
ford not  guilty.  As  the  time-servers  who  had  pretended  to 
shudder  at  the  thought  of  a  Popish  king,  and  who  had  shed 
without  pity  the  innocent  blood  of  a  Popish  peer,  now  elbowed 
each  other  to  get  nearva  Popish  altar,  the  accomplished  Trim- 
mer might,  with  some  justice,  indulge  his  solitary  pride  in 
that  unpopular  nickname.t 

Within  a  week  after  this  ceremony  James  made  a  far  greater 
sacrifice  of  his  own  religious  prejudices  than  he  had  yet  called 
on  any  of  his  Protestant  subjects  to  make.  He  was  crowned 
on  the  twenty-third  of  April,  the  feast  of  the  patron  saint  of 
the  realm.  The  abbey  and  the  hall  were  splendidly  decorated. 
The  presence  of  the  queen  and  of  the  peeresses  gave  to  the 
solemnity  a  charm  which  had  been  wanting  to  the  magnificent 
inauguration  of  the  late  king.  Yet  those  who  remembered 
that  inauguration  pronounced  that  there  was  a  great  falling  off". 
The  ancient  usage  was  that,  before  a  coronation,  the  sover- 
eign, with  all  his  heralds,  judges,  councillors,  lords,  and  great 
dignitaries,  should  ride  in  state  from  the  Tower  to  Westmin- 

*  "To  those  that  ask  boons 

He  swears  by  God's  cons, 

And  chides  them  as  if  they  came  there  to  steal  spoons." 

Lamentable  Lory,  a  ballad,  1684. 
t  Barillon,  April  |$,  1685. 


372  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

ster.  Of  these  cavalcades  the  last  and  the  most  glorious  was 
that  which  passed  through  the  capital  while  the  feelings  excited 
by  the  Restoration  were  still  in  full  vigor.  Arches  of  triumph 
overhung  the  road.  All  Cornhill,  Cheapside,  Saint  Paul's 
Church  Yard,  Fleet  Street,  and  the  Strand,  were  lined  with 
scaffolding.  The  whole  city  had  thus  been  admitted  to  gaze 
on  royalty  in  the  most  splendid  and  solemn  form  that  royalty 
could  wear.  James  ordered  an  estimate  to  be  made  of  the 
cost  of  such  a  procession,  and  found  that  it  would  amount  to 
about  half  as  much  as  he  proposed  to»expend  in  covering  his 
wife  with  trinkets.  He  accordingly  determined  to  be  profuse 
where  he  ought  to  have  been  frugal,  and  niggardly  where  he 
'might  pardonably  have  been  profuse.  More  than  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds  were  laid  out  in  dressing  the  queen,  and  the 
procession  from  the  Tower  was  omitted.  The  folly  of  this  course 
is  obvious.  If  pageantry  be  of  any  use  in  politics,  it  is  of  use 
as  a  means  of  striking  the  imagination  of  the  multitude.  It 
is  surely  the  height  of  absurdity  to  shut  out  the  populace  from 
a  show  of  which  the  main  object  is  to  make  an  impression 
on  the  populace.  James  would  have  shown  a  more  judicious 
munificence  and  a  more  judicious  parsimony,  if  he  had  trav- 
ersed London  from  east  to  west  with  the  accustomed  pomp, 
and  had  ordered  the  robes  of  his  wife  to  be  somewhat  less 
thickly  set  with  pearls  and  diamonds.  His  example  was,  how- 
ever, long  followed  by  his  successors ;  and  sums  which,  well 
employed,  would  have  afforded  exquisite  gratification  to  a 
large  part  of  the  nation,  were  squandered  on  an  exhibition  to 
which  only  three  or  four  thousand  privileged  persons  were 
admitted.  At  length  the  old  practice  was  partially  revived. 
On  the  day  of  the  coronation  of  Queen  Victoria  there  was  a 
procession  in  which  many  deficiencies  might  be  noted,  but 
which  was  seen  with  interest  and  delight  by  half  a  million  of 
her  subjects,  and  which  undoubtedly  gave  far  greater  pleasure, 
and  called  forth  far  greater  enthusiasm,  than  the  more  costly 
display  which  was  witnessed  by  a  select  circle  within  the 
abbey. 

James  had  ordered  Sancroft  to  abridge  the  ritual.  The 
reason  publicly  assigned  was,  that  the  day  was  too  short  for 
all  that  was  to  be  done.  But  whoever  examines  the  changes 
which  were  made  will  see  that  the  real  object  was,  to  remove 
some  things  highly  offensive  to  the  religious  feelings  of  a 
zealous  Roman  Catholic.  The  Communion  Service  was  not 
ead:  The  ceremony  of  presenting  the  sovereign  with  a 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  373* 

richly-bound  copy  of  the  English  Bible,  and  of  exhorting  him 
to  prize  above  all  earthly  treasures  a  volume  which  he  had 
been  taught  to  regard  as  adulterated  with  false  doctrine,  was 
omitted.  What  remained,  however,  after  all  this  curtailment, 
might  well  have  raised  scruples  in  the  mind  of  a  man  who 
sincerely  believed  the  Church  of  England  to  be  an  heretical 
society,  within  the  pale  of  which  salvation  was  not  to  be 
found.  The  king  made  an  oblation  on  the  altar.  He  ap- 
peared to  join  in  the  petitions  of  the  Litany  which  was  chanted 
by  the  bishops.  He  received  from  those  false  prophets  the 
unction  typical  of  a  divine  influence,  and  knelt  with  the  sem- 
blance of  devotion  while  they  called  down  upon  him  that  Holy 
Spirit  of  which  they  were,  in  his  estimation,  the  malignant 
and  obdurate  foes.  Such  are  the  inconsistencies  of  human 
nature,  that  this  man,  who,  from  a  fanatical  zeal  for  his  reli- 
gion, threw  away  three  kingdoms,  yet  chose  to  commit  what 
was  little  short  of  an  act  of  apostasy,  rather  than  forego  the 
childish  pleasure  of  being  invested  with  the  gewgaws  symboli- 
cal of  kingly  power.* 

Francis  Turner,  Bishop  of  Ely,  preached.  He  was  one  of 
those  writers  who  still  affected  the  obsolete  style  of  Arch- 
bishop Williams  and  Bishop  Andrews.  The  sermon  was 
made  up  of  quaint  conceits,  such  as  seventy  years  earlier 
might  have  been  admired,  but  such  as  moved  the  scorn  of  a 
generation  accustomed  to  the  purer  eloquence  of  Sprat,  of 
South,  and  of  Tillotson.  King  Solomon  was  King  James 
Adonijah  was  Monmouth.  Joab  was  a  Rye  House  conspira- 
tor ;  Shimei,  a  Whig  libeller ;  Abiathar,  an  honest  but  mis- 
guided old  Cavalier.  One  phrase  in  the  Book  of  Chronicles 
was  construed  to  mean  that  the  king  was  above  the  parlia- 
ment ;  and  another  was  cited  to  prove  that  he  alone  ought  to 
command  the  militia.  Towards  the  close  of  the  discourse 
the  orator  very  timidly  alluded  to  the  new  and  embarrassing 
position  in  which  the  Church  stood  with  reference  to  the 
sovereign,  and  reminded  his  hearers  that  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantius  Chlorus,  though  not  himself  a  Christian,  had  held  in 
nonor  those  Christians  who  remained  true  to  their  religion,, 
and  had  treated  with  scorn  those  who  sought  to  earn  his 

*  From  Adda's  despatch,  of  -Trr-?*  1686,  and  from  the  expressions 
of  the  Pere  d'Orleans,  (Histoire  des  Revolutions  d'Angleterre,  liv.  xi.) 
it  is  clear  that  rigid  Catholics  thought  the  king's  conduct  indefen- 
sible. 

VOL.  i.  32 


374  HISTORY  or  ENGLAND. 

favor  by  apostasy.  The  service  in  the  church  was  followed 
by  a  stately  banquet  in  the  hall,  the  banquet  by  brilliant  fire- 
works, and  the  fireworks  by  much  bad  poetry.* 

This  may  be  fixed  upon  as  the  moment  at  which  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  Tory  party  reached  the  zenith.  Ever  since  the 
accession  of  the  new  king,  addresses  had  been  pouring  in 
which  expressed  profound  veneration  for  his  person  and  office, 
and  bitter  detestation  of  the  vanquished  Whigs.  The  magis- 
trates of  Middlesex  thanked  God  for  having  confounded  the 
designs  of  those  regicides  and  excluders  who,  not  content 
with  having  murdered  one  blessed  monarch,  were  bent  on 
destroying  the  foundations  of  monarchy.  The  city  of  Glou- 
cester execrated  the  bloodthirsty  villains  who  had  tried  to 
deprive  His  Majesty  of  his  just  inheritance.  The  burgesses 
of  Wigan  assured  their  sovereign  that  they  would  defend  him 
against  all  plotting  Achitophels  and  rebellious  Absaloms.  The 
grand  jury  of  Suffolk  expressed  a  hope  that  the  parliament 
would  proscribe  all  the  excluders.  Many  corporations  pledged . 
themselves  never  to  return  to  parliament  any  person  who  had 
voted  for  taking  away  the  birthright  of  James.  Even  the  capital 
was  profoundly  obsequious.  The  lawyers  and  traders  vied  with 
each  other  in  servility.  Inns  of  court  and  inns  of  chancery 
sent  up  fervent  professions  of  attachment  and  submission.  All 
the  great  commercial  societies,  the  East  India  Company,  the 
African  Company,  the  Turkey  Company,  the  Muscovia  Com- 
pany, the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  the  Maryland  Merchants, 
the  Jamaica  Merchants,  the  Merchant  Adventurers,  declared 
-that  they  most  cheerfully  complied  with  the  royal  edict  which 
required  them  still  to  pay  custom.  Bristol,  the  second  city 
of  the  island,  echoed  the  voice  of  London.  But  nowhere  was 
the  spirit  of  loyalty  stronger  than  in  the  two  universities 
Oxford  declared  that  she  would  never  swerve  from  those  reli- 


*  London  Gazette  ;  Gazette  dc  France  ;  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the 
Second,  ii.  10  ;  History  of  the  Coronation  of  King  James  the  Second 
and  Queen  Mary,  by  Francis  Sandford,  Lancaster  Herald,  Fol.  1687 ; 
Evelyn's  Diary,  May  21,  1685  ;  Despatch  of  the  Dutch  Ambassadors, 
April  ££,  1685  ;  Burnet,  i.  628 ;  Eachard,  iii.  734  ;  A  Sermon  preached 
before  their  Majesties  King  James  the  Second  and  Queen  Mary  at 
their  Coronation  in  Westminster  Abbey,  April  23,  1685,  by  Francis, 
Lord  Bishop  of  Ely,  and  Lord  Almoner.  I  have  seen  an  Italian  ac- 
count which  was  published  at  Modena,  and  which  is  chiefly  remark- 
able for  the  skill  with  which  the  writer  sinks  the  fact  that  the  prayer* 
and  psalms  were  in  English,  and  that  ths  bishops  were  heretics. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  375 

gi'ous  principles  which  bound  her  to  obey  the  king  without  any 
restrictions  or  limitations.  Cambridge  condemned,  in  severe 
terms,  the  violence  and  treachery  of  those  turbulent  men  who 
had  maliciously  endeavored  to  turn  the  stream  of  succession 
out  of  the  ancient  channel.* 

Such  addresses  as  these  filled,  during  a  considerable  time, 
every  number  of  the  London  Gazette.  But  it  was  not  only 
by  addressing  that  the  Tories  showed  their  zeal.  The  writs 
for  the  new  parliament  had  gone  forth,  and  the  country  was 
agitated  by  the  tumult  of  a  general  election.  No  election 
had  ever  taken  place  under  circumstances  so  favorable  to  the 
court.  Hundreds  of  thousands  whom  the  Popish  Plot  had 
scared  into  Whiggism  had  been  scared  back  by  the  Rye 
House  Plot  into  Toryism.  In  the  counties  the  government 
could  depend  on  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  gentlemen 
of  three  hundred  a  year  and  upwards,  and  on  the  clergy 
almost  to  a  man.  Those  boroughs  which  had  once  been  the 
citadels  of  Whiggism.  had  recently  been  deprived  of  their 
charters  by  legal  sentence,  or  had  prevented  the  sentence  by 
voluntary  surrender.  They  had  now  been  reconstituted  "in 
such  a  manner  that  they  were  certain  to  return  members 
devoted  to  the  crown.  Where  the  townsmen  could  not  be 
trusted,  the  freedom  had  been  bestowed  on  the  neighboring 
squires.  In  some  of  the  small  western  corporations,  the  con- 
stituent bodies  were  in  great  part  composed  of  captains  and 
lieutenants  of  the  guards.  The  returning  officers  were  every 
where  in  the  interest  of  the  court.  In  every  shire  the  lord 
lieutenant  and  his  deputies-  formed  a  powerful,  active,  and 
vigilant  committee,  for  the  purpose  of  cajoling  and  intimidat- 
ing the  freeholders.  The  people  were  solemnly  warned  from 
thousands  of  pulpits  not  to  vote  for  any  Whig  candidate,  as 
they  should  answer  it  to  Him  who  had  ordained  the  powers 
that  be,  and  who  had  pronounced  rebellion  a  sin  not  less 
deadly  than  witchcraft.  All  these  advantages  the  predomi- 
nant party  not  only  used  to  the  utmost,  but  abused  in  so  shame- 
less a  manner,  that  grave  and  reflecting  men  who  had  been 
true  to  the  monarch  in  peril,  and  who  bore  no  love  to  repub- 
licans and  schismatics,  stood  aghast,  and  augured  from  such 
beginnings  the  approach  of  evil  times.t 

*  See  the  London  Gazette  during  the  months  of  February,  March, 
Rnd  April,  1685. 

t  It  would  be  easy  to  fill  a  volume  with  -what  "Whig  historians  and 


376  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

Yet  the  Whigs,  though  suffering  the  just  punishment  of  their 
errors,  though  defeated,  disheartened,  and  disorganized,  did 
not  yield  without  an  effort.  They  were  still  numerous  among 
the  traders  and  artisans  of  the  towns,  and  among  the  yeo- 
manry and  peasantry  of  the  open  country.  In  some  districts, 
in  Dorsetshire,  for  example,  and  in  Somersetshire,  they  were 
the  great  majority  of  the  population.  In  the  remodelled  bor- 
oughs they  could  do  nothing ;  but,  in  every  county  where  they 
had  a  chance,  they  struggled  desperately.  In  Bedfordshire, 
which  had  lately  been  represented  by  the  virtuous  and  unfor- 
tunate Russell,  they  were  victorious  on  the  show  of  hands, 
but  were  beaten  at  the  poll.*  In  Essex  they  polled  thirteen 
hundred  votes  to  eighteen  hundred.t  At  the  election  for 
Northamptonshire  the  common  people  were  so  violent  in  their 
hostility  to  the  court  candidate,  that  a  body  of  troops  was 
drawn  out  in  the  market  place  of  the  county  town,  and  was 
ordered  to  load  with  ball.J  The  history  of  the  contest  for 
Buckinghamshire  is  still  more  remarkable.  The  Whig  can- 
didate, Thomas  Wharton,  eldest  son  of  Philip  Lord  Wharton, 
was  a  man  distinguished  alike  by  dexterity  and  by  audacity, 
and  destined  to  play  a  conspicuous,  though  not  always  a 
respectable,  part  in  the  politics  of  several  reigns.  He  had 
been  one  of  those  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  who 
had  carried  up  the  Exclusion  Bill  to  the  bar  of  the  Lords. 
The  court  was  therefore  bent  on  throwing  him  out  by  fair  or 
foul  means.  The  Lord  Chief  Justice  Jeffreys  himself  came 
down  into  Buckinghamshire,  for  the  purpose  of  assisting  a 
gentleman  named  Hacket,  who  stood  on  the  high  Tory  inter- 
est. A  stratagem  was  devised  which,  it  was  thought,  could 
not  fail  of  success.  It  was  given  out  that  the  polling  would 
take  place  at  Ailesbury  ;  and  Wharton,  whose  skill  in  all  the 
arts  of  electioneering  was  unrivalled,  made  his  arrangements 

pamphleteers  have  written  on  this  subject.  I  will  cite  only  one 
witness,  a  Churchman  and  a  Tory.  "  Elections,"  says  Evelyn,  "  were 
thought  to  be  very  indecently  carried  on  in  most  places.  God  give  a 
better  issue  of  it  than  some  expect ! "  (May  10,  1685.)  Again  he  says, 
"  The  truth  is,  there  were  many  of  the  new  members  whose  elections 
and  returns  were  universally  sondemned."  (May  22.) 

*  From  a  newsletter  in  the  library  of  the  Royal  Institution.  Citters 
mentions  the  strength  of  the  Whig  party  in  Bedfordshire. 

t  Bramston's  Memoirs. 

t  Reflections  on  a  Remonstrance  and  Protestation  of  all  the  good 
Protestants  of  this  Kingdom,  1689 ;  Dialogue  between  Two  Friends, 
1680. 


HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND.  377 

on  that  supposition.  At  a  moment's  warning  the  sheriff 
adjourned  the  poll  to  Newport  Pagnell.  Wharton  and  his 
friends  hurried  thither,  and  found  that  Hacket,  who  was  in  the 
secret,  had  already  secured  every  inn  and  lodging.  The 
Whig  freeholders  were  compelled  to  tie  their  horses  to  the 
hedges,  and  to  sleep  under  the  open  sky  in  the  meadows 
which  surround  the  little  town.  It  was  with  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty that  refreshments  could  be  procured  at  such  short  notice 
for  so  large  a  number  of  men  and  beasts,  though  Wharton, 
who  was  utterly  regardless  of  money  when  his  ambition  and 
party  spirit  were  roused,  disbursed  fifteen  hundred  pounds  in 
one  day,  an  immense  outlay  for  those  times.  Injustice  seems, 
however,  to  have  animated  the  courage  of  the  stout-hearted 
yeomen  of  Bucks,  the  sons  of  the  constituents  of  John  Hamp- 
den.  Not  only  was  Wharton  at  the  head  of  the  poll,  but 
he  was  able  to  spare  his  second  votes  to  a  man  of  moderate 
opinions,  and  to  throw  out  the  Chief  Justice's  candidate.* 

In  Cheshire  the  contest  lasted  six  days.  The  Whigs  polled 
about  seventeen  hundred  votes,  the  Tories  about  two  thou- 
sand. The  common  people  were  vehement  on  the  Whig  side, 
raised'the  cry  of  "  Down  with  the  bishops,"  insulted  the  clergy 
in  the  streets  of  Chester,  knocked  down  one  gentleman  of  the 
Tory  party,  broke  the  windows,  and  beat  the  constables.  The 
militia  was  called  out  to  quell  the  riot,  and  was  kept  assem- 
bled, in  order  to  protect  the  festivities  of  the  conquerors. 
When  the  poll  closed,  a  salute,  of  five  great  guns  from  the 
castle  proclaimed  the  triumph  of  the  church  and  the  crown 
to  the  surrounding  country.  The  bells  rang.  The  newly- 
elected  members  went  in  state  to  the  city  Cross,  accompanied 
by  a  band  of  music,  and  by  a  long  train  of  knights  and 
squires.  The  procession,  as  it  marched,  sang,  "  Joy  to  Great 
Caesar,"  a  loyal  ode,  which  had  lately  been  written  by  Dur- 
fey,  and  which,  though,  like  all  Durfey's  writings,  utterly 
contemptible,  was,  at  that  time,  almost  as  popular  as  Lillebul- 
lero  became  a  few  years  later.!  Round  the  Cross  the  train- 
bands were  drawn  up  in  order ;  a  bonfire  was  lighted  ;  the 
Exclusion  Bill  was  burned  ;  and  the  health  of  King  James  was 
drunk  with  loud  acclamations.  The  following  day  was  Sun- 

*  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Thomas  Marquess  of  Wharton,  1715. 

t  See  the  Guardian,  No.  67  ;  an  exquisite  specimen  of  Addison'a 
peculiar  manner.     It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  any  other  writei 
•uch  an  instance  of  benevolence  delicately  flavored  with  contempt. 
32* 


378  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

day.  In  the  morning  the  militia  lined  the  streets  leading  to 
the  Cathedral.  The  two  knights  of  the  shire  were  escorted 
with  great  pomp  to  the  choir  by  the  magistracy  of  the  city, 
heard  the  dean  preach  a  sermon,  probably  on  the  duty  of 
passive  obedience,  and  were  afterwards  feasted  by  the  mayor.* 

In  Northumberland  the  triumph  of  Sir  John  Fenwick,  a 
courtier  whose  name  afterwards  obtained  a  melancholy  celeb- 
rity, was  attended  by  circumstances  which  excited  interest  in 
London,  and  which  were  thbught  not  unworthy  of  being  men- 
tioned in  the  despatches  of  foreign  ministers.  Newcastle  was 
lighted  up  with  bonfires.  The  steeples  sent  forth  a  joyous 
peal.  A  copy  of  the  Exclusion  Bill,  and  a  black  box  resem- 
bling that  which,  according  to  the  popular  fable,  contained  the 
contract  between  Charles  the  Second  and  Lucy  Walters,  were 
publicly  committed  to  the  flames,  with  loud  acclamations.t 

The  general  result  of  the  elections  exceeded  the  most  san- 
guine expectations  of  the  court.  James  found  with  delight 
that  it  would  be  unnecessary  for  him  to  expend  a  farthing  in 
buying  votes.  He  said  that,  with  the  exception  of  afbout  forty 
members,  the  House  of  Commons  was  just  such  as  he  should 
himself  have  named. J  And  this  House  of  Commons  it  was 
in  his  power,  as  the  law  then  stood,  to  keep  to  the  end  of  his 
reign. 

Secure  of  parliamentary  support,  he  might  now  indulge  in 
the  luxury  of  revenge.  His  nature  was  not  placable ;  and, 
while  •still  a  subject,  he  had  suffered  some  injuries  and  indig- 
nities which  might  move  even  a  placable  nature  to  fierce 
and  lasting  resentment.  One  set  of  men  in  particular  had, 
with  a  baseness  and  cruelty  beyond  all  example  and  all  de- 
scription, attacked  his  honor  and  his  life,  the  witnesses  of  the 
plot.  He  may  well  be  excused  for  hating  them  ;  since,  even 
at  this  day,  the  mention  of  their  names  excites  the  disgust  and 
horror  of  all  sects  and  parties. 

Some  of  these  wretches  were  already  beyond  the  reach  of 
human  justice.  Bedloe  had  died  in  his  wickedness,  without 
one  sign  of  remorse  or  shame.§  Dugdale  had  followed  to  the 
grave,  driven  mad,  men  said,  by  the  furies  of  an  evil  con- 
science, and  with  loud  shrieks  imploring  those  who  stood  round 

*  The  Observator,  April  4,  1685. 

t  Despatch  of  the  Dutch  Ambassadors,  April  }$,  1685. 
J  Burnet,  L  626. 

$  A  faithful  account  of  the  Sickness,  Death,  and  Burial  of  Captaii 
Bedlow,  1680 ;  Narrative  of  Lord  Chief  Justice  North. 


HISTORY    Of    ENGLAND.  379 

his  bed  to  take  away  Lord  Stafford.*  Carstairs,  too,  was  gone. 
His  end  was  all  horror  and  despair  ;  and,  with  his  last  breath, 
he  .had  told  his  attendants  to  throw  him  into  a  ditch  like  a  dog, 
for  that  he  was  not  fit  to  sleep  in  a  Christian  burial-ground. t 
But  Gates  and  Dangerfield  were  still  within  the  reach  of  the 
stern  prince  whom  they  had  wronged.  James,  a  short  time 
before  his  accession,  had  instituted  a  civil  suit  against  Gates 
for  defamatory  words ;  and  a  jury  had  given  damages  to  the 
enormous  amount  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds.J  The  de- 
fendant had  been  taken  in  execution,  and  was  lying  in  prison 
as  a  debtor,  without  hope  of  release.  Two  bills  of  indictment 
against  him  for  perjury  had  been  found  by  the  grand  jury  of 
Middlesex,  a  few  weeks  before  the  death  of  Charles.  Soon 
after  the  close  of  the  elections  the  trial  came  on. 

Among  the  upper  and  middle  classes,  Gates  had  scarcely  a 
friend  left.  -  All  intelligent  Whigs  were  now  convinced  that, 
even  if  his  narrative  had  some  foundation  in  fact,  he  had 
erected  on  that  foundation  a  vast  superstructure  of  romance. 
A  considerable  number  of  low  fanatics,  however,  still  regarded 
him  as  a  public  benefactor.  These  people  well  knew  that,  if 
he  were  convicted,  his  sentence  would  be  one  of  extreme 
severity,  and  were  therefore  indefatigable  in  their  endeavors 
to  manage  an  escape.  Though  as  yet  in  confinement  only 
for  debt,  he  was  put  into  irons  by  the  authorities  of  the  King's 
Bench  prison ;  and  even  so  he  was  with  difficulty  kept  in  safe 
custody.  The  mastiff"  that  guarded  his  door  was  poisoned  ; 
and,  on  the  very  night  preceding  his  trial,  a  ladder  of  ropes 
was  introduced  into  his  cell. 

On  the  day  in  which  he  was  brought  to  the  bar,  Westmin- 
ster Hall  was  crowded  with  spectators,  among  whom  were 
many  Roman  Catholics,  eager  to  see  the  misery  and  humilia- 
tion of  their  persecutor. §  A  few  years  earlier  his  short  neck, 
his  legs  uneven  as  those  of  a  badger,  his  forehead  low  as  that 
of  a  baboon,  his  purple  cheeks,  and  his  monstrous  length  of 
chin,  had  been  familiar  to  all  who  frequented  the  courts  of 
law.  He  had  then  been  the  idol  of  the  nation.  Wherever  he 
had  appeared  men  had  uncovered  their  heads  to  him.  The 
l>ves  and  estates  of  the  magnates  of  the  realm  had  been  at 
V  s  mercy.  Times  had  now  changed  ;  and  many,  who  had 

*  Smith's  Intrigues  of  the  Popish  Plot,  1685. 

t  Burnct,  i.  439. 

|  See  the  proceedings  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials. 

$  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  7,  1685. 


380  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

formerly  regarded  him  as  the  deliverer  of  his  country,  shud- 
dered at  the  sight  of  those  hideous  features  on  which  villany 
seemed  to  be  written  by  the  hand  of  God.* 

It  was  proved,  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,  that  this  man 
had,  by  false  testimony,  deliberately  murdered  several  y^ilt- 
less  persons.  He  called  in  vain  on  the  most  eminent  mem 
bers  of  the  parliaments  which  had  rewarded  and  extolled  him 
to  give  evidence  in  his  favor.  Some  of  those  whom  he  had 
summoned  absented  themselves.  None  of  them  said  any 
thing  tending  to  his  vindication.  One  of  them,  the  Earl  of 
Huntingdon,  bitterly  reproached  him  with  having  deceived  the 
Houses  and  drawn  on  them  the  guilt  of  shedding  innocent 
blood.  The  Judges  browbeat  and  reviled  the  prisoner  with  an 
intemperance  which,  even  in  the  most  atrocious  cases,  ill  be- 
comes the  judicial  character.  He  betrayed,  however,  no  sign 
of  fear  or  of  shame,  and  faced  the  storm  of  invective  which 
burst  upon  him  from  bar,  bench,  and  witness  box,  with  the 
insolence  of  despair.  He  was  convicted  on  both  indictments. 
His  offence,  though,  in  a  moral  light,  murder  of  the  most 
aggravated  kind,  was,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  merely  a-  mis- 
demeanor. The  tribunal,  however,  was  desirous  to  make  his 
punishment  more  severe  than  that  of  felons  or  traitors,  and  not 
merely  to  put  him  to  death,  but  to  put  him  to  death  by  fright- 
ful torments.  He  was  sentenced  to  be  stripped  of  his  clerical 
habit,  to  be  pilloried  in  Palace  Yard,  to  be  led  round  West- 
minster Hall  with  an  inscription  declaring  his  infamy  over  his 
head,  to  be  pilloried  again  in  front  of  the  Royal  Exchange,  to 
be  whipped  from  Aldgate  to  Ndwgate,  and,  after  an  interval 
of  two  days,  to  be  whipped  from  Newgate  to  Tyburn.'  If, 
against  all  probability,  he  should  happen  to  survive  this  hor- 
rible infliction,  he  was  to  be  kept  close  prisoner  during  life. 
Five  times  every  year  he  was  to  be  brought  forth  from  his 
dungeon  and  exposed  on  the  pillory  in  different  parts  of  the 
capital.t 

This  rigorous  sentence  was  rigorously  executed.  On  the 
day  on  which  Oates  was  pilloried  in  Palace  Yard,  he  was  mer- 
cilessly pelted  and  ran  some  risk  of  being  pulled  in  pieces.^ 

*  There  remain  many  pictures  of  Oates.  The  most  striking  de- 
scriptions of  his  person  are  in  North's  Examen,  225,  in  Dryden'a 
Absalom  and  Achitophcl,  and  in  a  broadside  entitled,  A  Hue  and  Cry 
after  T.  O. 

t  The  proceedings  will  be  found  at  length  in  the  Collection  of 
State  Trials. 

J  Gazette  de  France,  ^l!??  1685. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  381 

But  in  the  city  his  partisans  mustered  in  great  force,  raised  a 
riot,  and  upset  the  pillory.*  They  were,  however,  unable  to 
rescue  their  favorite.  It  was  supposed  that  he  would  try  to 
escape  the  horrible  doom  which  awaited  him  by  swallowing 
poison.  All  that  he  ate  and  drank  was  therefore  carefully 
inspected.  On  the  following  morning  he  was  brought  forth 
to  undergo  his  first  flogging.  At  an  early  hour  an  innumer- 
^able  multitude  filled  all  the  streets  from  Aldgate  to  the  Old 
Bailey.  The  hangman  laid  on  the  lash  with  such  unusual 
severity  as  showed  that  he  had  received  special  instructions. 
The  blood  run  down  in  rivulets.  For  a  time  the  criminal 
showed  a  strange  constancy :  but  at  last  his  stubborn  forti- 
tude gave  way.  His  bellowings  were  frightful  to  hear.  He 
swooned  several  times ;  but  the  scourge  still  continued  to 
descend.  When  he  was  unbound,  it  seemed  that  he  had 
borne  as  much  as  the  human  frame  can  bear  without  dissolu- 
tion. James  was  entreated  to  remit  the  second  flogging. 
His  answer  was  short  and  clear.  "  He  shall  go  through  with 
it,  if  he  has  breath  in  his  body."  An  attempt  was  made  to 
obtain  the  queen's  intercession ;  but  she  indignantly  refused 
to  say  a  word  in  favor  of  such  <a  wretch.  After  an  interval 
of  only  forty-eight  hours,  Oates  was  again  brought  out  of  his 
dungeon.  He  was  unable  to  stand,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
drag  him  to  Tyburn  on  a  sledge.  He  seemed  quite  insensi- 
ble ;  and  the  Tories  reported  that  he  had  stupefied  himself 
with  strong  drink.  A  person  who  counted  the  stripes  on  the 
second  day,  said  that  they  were  seventeen  hundred.  The  bad 
man  escaped  with  life,  but  so  narrowly  that  his  ignorant 
and  bigoted  admirers  thought  his  recovery  miraculous,  and 
appealed  to  it  as  a  proof  of  his  innocence.  The  doors  of  the 
prison  closed  upon  him.  During  many  months  he  remained 
ironed  in  the  darkest  hole  of  Newgate.  It  was  said  that  in 
his  cell  he  gave  himself  up  to  melarjcholy,  and  sate  whole 
days  uttering  deep  groans,  his  arms  folded,  and  his  hat  pulled 
over  his  eyes.  It  was  not  in  England  alone  that  these  events 
excited  strong  interest.  Millions  of  Roman  Catholics,  who 
knew  nothing  of  our  institutions  or  of  our  factions,  had  heard 
that  a  persecution  of  singular  barbarity  had  raged  in  our 
island  against  the  professors  of  the  true  faith,  that  many  pious 
men  had  suffered  martyrdom,  and  that  Titus  Oates  had  been 
<he  chief  murderer.  There  was,  therefore,  great  joy  in  dis- 

*  Despatch,  of  the  Dutch  ambassadors,  May  £f,  1685. 


382  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

tant  countries  when  it  was  known  that  the  divine  justice  had 
overtaken  him.  Engravings  of  him,  looking  out  from  the 
pillory,  and  writhing  at  the  cart's  tail,  were  circulated  all  over 
Europe  ;  and  epigrammatists,  in  many  languages,  made  merry 
with  the  doctoral  title  which  he  pretended  to  have  received 
from  the  University  of  Salamanca,  and  remarked  that  since 
his  forehead  could  not  be  made  to  blush,  it  was  but  reasonable 
that  his  back  should  do  so.* 

Horrible  as  were  the  sufferings  of  Gates,  they  did  not  equal 
his  crimes.  The  old  law  of  England,  which  had  been  suffered 
to  become  obsolete,  treated  the  false  witness,  who  had  caused 
death  by  means  of  perjury,  as  a  murderer.t  This  was  wise 
and  righteous  ;  for  such  a  witness  is,  in  truth,  the  worst  of 
murderers.  To  the  guilt  of  shedding  innocent  blood  he  has 
added  the  guilt  of  violating  the  most  solemn  engagement  into 
which  man  can  enter  with  his  fellow-men,  and  of  making 
institutions  to  which  it  is  desirable  that  the  public  should  look 
with  respect  and  confidence  instruments  of  frightful  wrong  and 
objects  of  general  distrust.  The  pain  produced  by  an  ordi- 
nary assassination  bears  no  proportion  to  the  pain  produced 
by  assassination  of  which  the,  courts  of  justice  are  made  the 
agents.  The  mere  extinction  of  life  is  a  very  small  part  of 
what  makes  an  execution  horrible.  The  prolonged  mental 
agony  of  the  sufferer,  the  shame  and  misery  of  all  connected 
with  him,  the  stain  abiding  even  to  the  third  and  fourth  gener- 
ation, are  things  far  more  dreadful  than  death  itself.  In  gen- 

*  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  22,  1685 ;  Eachard,  iii.  741  ;  Burnet,  i. 
637 ;  Observator,  May  27,  1685  ;  Oates's  Etxuv,  89 ;  Tom  Brown's 
Advice  to  Dr.  Gates.  Some  interesting  circumstances  are  mentioned 
in  a  broadside,  printed  for  A.  Brooks,  Charing  Cross,  1685.  I  have 
seen  contemporary  French  and  Italian  pamphlets  containing  the 
history  of  the  trial  and  execution.  A  print  of  Titus  in  the  pillory 
•was  published  at  Milan,  with  the  following  curious  inscription : 
"  Questo  e  il  naturale  ritratto  di  Tito  Otez,  o  vero  Oatz,  Inglese,  posto 
in  berlina,  uno  de'  principal!  professori  della  religion  protestante, 
acerrimo  persecutore  de'  Cattolici,  e  gran  spergiuro."  I  have  also 
seen  a  Dutch  engraving  of  his  punishment,  with  some  Latin  verses, 
of  which -the  following  are  a  specimen :  — 

"  At  Doctor  fictus  non  fictos  pertulit  ictus, 
A  tortore  datos  haud  molli  in  corpore  gratos, 
Disceret  ut  vere  scelera  ob  commissa  rubere." 

The  anagram  of  his  name,  "  Testis  Ovat,"  may  be  found  on  man? 
prints  published  in  different  countries. 

t  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  Chapter  of  Homicide. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  383 

eral,  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  the  father  of  a  large  fam- 
ily would  rather  be  bereaved  of  all  his  children  by  accident  01 
by  disease  than  lose  one  of  them  by  the  hands  of  the  hang- 
man. Murder  by  false  testimony  is  therefore  the  most  aggra- 
vated species  of  murder ;  and  Gates  had  been  guilty  of  many 
such  murders.  Nevertheless  the  punishment  which  was  in- 
flicted upon  him  cannot  be  justified.  In  sentencing  him  to  be 
stripped  of  his  ecclesiastical  habit  and  imprisoned  for  life,  the 
judges  seem  to  have  exceeded  their  legal  power.  They  were 
undoubtedly  competent  to  inflict  whipping,  nor  had  the  law 
assigned  a  limit  to  the  number  of  stripes.  But  the  spirit  of 
the  law  clearly  was,  that  no  misdemeanor  should  be  punished 
more  severely  than  the  most  atrocious  felonies.  The  worst 
felon  could  only  be  hanged.  The  judges,  as  they  believed, 
sentenced  Gates  to  be  scourged  to  death.  That  the  law  was 
defective  is  not  a  sufficient  excuse  ;  for  defective  laws  should 
be  altered  by  the  legislature,  and  not  strained  by  the  tribunals  ; 
and  least  of  all  should  the  law  be  strained  for  the  purpose  of 
inflicting  torture  and  destroying  life.  That  Gates  was  a  bad 
man,  is  not  a  sufficient  excuse  ;  for  the  guilty  are  almost 
always  the  first  to  suffer  those  hardships  which  are  afterwards 
used  as  precedents  for  oppressing  the  innocent.  Thus  4t  was 
in  the  present  case.  Merciless  flogging  soon  became  an  ordi- 
nary punishment  for  political  misdemeanors  of  no  very  aggra- 
vated kind.  Men  were  sentenced  for  hasty  words  spoken 
against  the  government  to  pain  so  excruciating  that  they,  with 
unfeigned  earnestness,  begged  to  be  brought  to  trial  on  capital 
charges,  and  sent  to  the  gallows.  Happily  the  progress  of  this 
great  evil  was  speedily  stopped  by  the  revolution,  and  by  that 
article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  which  condemns  all  cruel  and 
unusual  punishments. 

The  villany  of  Dangerfield  had  not,  like  that  of  Gates 
destroyed  many  innocent  victims ;  for  Dangerfield  had  nol 
taken  up  the  trade  of  a  witness  till  the  plot  had  been  blown 
upon  and  juries  had  become  incredulous.*  He  was  brought 

*  According  to  Roger  .North  the  judges  decided  that  Dangerfield, 
having  been  previously  convicted  of  perjury,  was  incompetent  to  be  a 
•witness  of  the  plot.  But  this  is  one  among  many  instances  of 
Roger's  inaccuracy.  It  appears  from  the  report  of  the  trial  of  Lord 
Castlemaine  in  June,  1680,  that,  after  much  altercation  between  coun- 
sel, and  much  consultation  among  the  judges  of  the  different  courts 
in  Westminster  Hall,  Dangerfield  was  sworn,  and  suffered  to  tell  hi* 
etory,  but  the  jury  very  properly  refused  to  believe  him. 


384  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

to  trial,  not  for  perjury,  but  for  the  less  heinous  offence  of 
libel.  He  had,  during  the  agitation  caused  by  the  Exclusion 
Bill,  put  forth  a  narrative  containing  some  false  and  odious 
imputations  on  the  late  and  on  the  present  king.  For  this 
publication  he  was  now,  after  the  lapse  of  five  years,  suddenly 
taken  up,  brought  before  the  Privy  Council,  committed,  tried, 
convicted,  and  sentenced  to  be  whipped  from  Aldgate  to  New- 
gate, and  from  Newgate  to  Tyburn.  The  wretched  man  be- 
haved with  great  effrontery  during  the  trial ;  but  when  ha 
heard  his  doom,  he  went  into  agonies  of  despair,  gave  himself 
up  for  dead,  and  chose  a  text  for  his  funeral  sermon.  His 
forebodings  were  just.  He  was  not,  indeed,  scourged  quite  so 
severely  as  Gates  had  been ;  but  he  had  not  Oates's  iron 
strength  of  body  and  mind.  After  the  execution,  Dangerfield 
was  put  into  a  hackney  coach  and  was  taken  back  to  prison. 
As  he  passed  the  corner  of  Hatton  Garden,  a  Tory  gentleman 
of  Gray's  Inn,  named  Francis,  stopped  the  carriage,  and  cried 
out  with  brutal  levity,  "  Well,  friend,  have  you  had  your  heat 
this  morning  ? "  The  bleeding  prisoner,  maddened  by  this 
insult,  answered  with  a  curse.  Francis  instantly  struck  him 
in  the  face  with  a  cane,  which  injured  the  eye.  Dangerfield 
was  carried  dying  into  Newgate.  This  dastardly  outrage 
roused  the  indignation  of  the  bystanders.  They  seized  Fran 
cis,  and  were  with  difficulty  restrained  from  tearing  him  to 
pieces.  The  appearance  of  Dangerfield's  body,  which  had 
been  frightfully  lacerated  by  the  whip,  inclined  many  to  be- 
lieve that  his  death  was  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  caused  by  the 
stripes  which  he  had  received.  The  government  and  the 
Chief  Justice  thought  it  convenient  to  lay  the  whole  blame  on 
Francis,  who,  though  he  seems  to  have  been  at  worst  guilty 
only  of  aggravated  manslaughter,  was  tried  and  executed  for 
murder.  His  dying  speech  is  one  of  the  most  curious  monu- 
ments of  that  age.  The  savage  spirit  which  had  brought  him 
to  the  gallows  remained  with  him  to  the  last.  Boasts  of  his 
loyalty  and  abuse  of  the  Whigs  were  mingled  with  the  parting 
ejaculations  in  which  he  commended  his  soul  to  the  divine 
mercy.  An  idle  rumor  had  been  circulated  that  his  wife  was 
in  love  with  Dangerfield,  who  was  eminently  handsome  and 
renowned  for  gallantry.  The  fatal  blow,  it  was  said,  had  been 
prompted  by  jealousy.  The  dying  husband,  with  an  earnest- 
ness half  ridiculous,  half  pathetic,  vindicated  the  lady's  char- 
acter. She  was,  he  said,  a  virtuous  woman  ;  she  came  of  a 
.oyal  stock,  and,  if  she  had  been  inclined  to  break  her  mai- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  385 

nage  vow,  would  at  least  have  selected  a  Tory  and  a  Church- 
man for  her  paramour.* 

About  the  same  time  a  culprit,  who  bore  very  little  resem- 
blance to  Gates  or  Dangerfield,  appeared  on  the  floor  of  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench.  No  emirient  chief  of  a  party  has  ever 
passed  through  many  years  of  civil  and  religious  dissension 
with  more  innocence  than  Richard  Baxter.  He  belonged  to 
the  mildest  and  most  temperate  section  of  the  Puritan  body. 
He  was  a  young  man  when  the  civil  war  broke  out  He 
thought  that  the  right  was  on  the  side  of  the  Houses ;  and  he 
had  no  scruple  about  acting  as  chaplain  to  a  regiment  in  the 
parliamentary  army.  Bill  his  clear  and  somewhat  sceptical 
understanding,  and  his  strong  sense  of  justice,  preserved  him 
from  all  excesses.  He  exerted  himself  to  check  the  fanatical 
violence  of  the  soldiery.  He  condemned  the  proceedings  of 
the  High  Court  of  Justice.  In  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth, 
he  had  the  boldness  to  express,  on  many  occasions,  and  once 
even  in  Cromwell's  presence,  love  and  reverence  for  the 
ancient  institutions  of  the  country.  While  the  royal  family- 
was  Ju  exile,  Baxter's  life  was  chiefly  passed  at  Kidderminster 
in  the  assiduous  discharge  of  parochial  duties.  He  heartily 
concurred  in  the  Restoration,  and  was  sincerely  desirous  to 
bring  about  a  union  between  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians. 
For,  with  a  liberality  rare  in  his  time,  he  considered  questions 
of  ecclesiastical  polity  as  of  small  account  when  compared 
with  the  great  principles  of  Christianity,  and  had  never,  even 
when  prelacy  was  most  odious  to  the  ruling  powers,  joined  in 
the  outcry  against  bishops.  The  attempt  to  reconcile  the  con- 
tending factions  failed.  Baxter  cast  in  his  lot  with  his  pro- 
scribed friends,  refused  the  mitre  of  Hereford,  quitted  the 
parsonage  of  Kidderminster,  and  gave  himself  up  almost 
wholly  to  study.  His  theological  writings,  though  too  moder- 

*  Dangerfield's  trial  was  not  reported,  but  I  have  seen  a  concise 
account  of  it  in  a  contemporary  broadside.  An  abstract  of  the  evi- 
dence against  Francis,  and  his  dying  speech,  will  be  found  in  the 
Collection  of  State  Trials.  See  Eachard,  iii.  741.  Burnet's  narrative 
contains  more  mistakes  than  lines.  See  also  North's  Examen,  256, 
the  sketch  of  Dangerfield's  Life  in  the  Bloody  Assizes,  and  the 
Observator  of  July  29,  1685.  In  the  very  rare  yolume  entitled 
"  Succinct  Genealogies,  by  Robert  Halstead,"  Lord  Peterborough 
gays  that  Dangerfield,  with  whom  he  had  some  intercourse,  was  "  a 
young  man  who  appeared  under  a  decent  figure,  a  serious  behavior, 
and  with  words  that  did  not  seem  to  proceed  from  a  common  under- 
standing," 

VOL.  I,  33 


386  HISTORY    OF    &NGL.AN1>. 

ate  to  be  pleasing  to  the  bigots  of  any  party,  had  an  immense 
reputation.  Zealous  Churchmen  called  him  a  Roundhead ; 
and  many  Nonconformists  accused  .lim  of  Erastianism  and 
Arminianism.  But  the  integrity  of  his  heart,  the  purity  of  his 
life,  the  vigor  of  his  faculties,  and  the  extent  of  his  attain- 
ments, were  acknowledged  by  the  best  and  wisest  men  of 
every  persuasion.  His  political  opinions,  in  spite  of  the 
oppression  which  he  and  his  brethren  had  suffered,  were  mod- 
erate. He  was  partial  to  that  small  party  which  was  hated  by 
both  Whigs  and  Tories.  He  could  not,  he  said,  join  in  cursing 
the  Trimmers,  when  he  remembered  who  it  was  that  had 
blessed  the  peacemakers.*  • 

In  a  Commentary  on  the  New  Testament,  he  had  complained, 
with  some  bitterness,  of  the  persecution  which  the  dissen- 
ters suffered.  That  men  who,  for  not  using  the  Prayer  Book, 
had  been  driven  from  their  homes,  stripped  of  their  property, 
and  locked  up  in  dungeons,  should  dare  to  utter  a  murmur, 
was  then  thought  a  high  crime  against  the  state  and  the 
church.  Roger  Lestrange,  the  champion  of  the  government 
and  the  oracle  of  the  clergy,  sounded  the  note  of  war  in  the 
Observator.  An  information  was  filed.  Baxter  begged  that 
he  might  be  allowed  some  time  to  prepare  for  his  defence. 
It  was  on  the  day  on  which  Gates  was  pilloried  in  Palace 
Yard  that  the  illustrious  chief  of  the  Puritans,  oppressed  by 
age  and  infirmities,  came  to  Westminster  Hall  to  make  this 
request.  Jeffreys  burst  into  a  storm  of  rage.  "  Not  a  min- 
ute," he  cried,  "  to  save  his  life.  I  can  deal  with  saints  as 
well  as  with  sinners.  There  stands  Gates  on  one  side  of  the 
pillory ;  and,  if  Baxter  stood  on  the  other,  the  two  greatest 
rogues  in  the  kingdom  would  stand  together." 

When  the  trial  came  on  at  Guildhall,  a  crowd  of  those  whc 
loved  and  honored  Baxter  filled  the  court.  At  his  side  stood 
Doctor  William  Bates,  one  of  the  most  eThinent  o^  the  Non- 
conformist divines.  Two  Whig  barristers  of  great  note,  Pol- 
lexfen  and  Wallop,  appeared  for  the  defendant.  Poll^xfen 
had  scarce  begun  his  address  to  the  jury,  when  the  CLiof  Jus- 
tice broke  forth  :  "  Pollexfen,  I  know  you  well.  I  will  set  a 
mark  on  you.  You  are  the  patron  of  the  faction.  This  is  an 
old  rogue,  a  schismatical  knave,  a  hypocritical  vftlain.  He 
hates  the  Liturgy.  He  would  have  nothing  but  long-winded 

*  Baxter's  preface  to  Sir  Matthew  Hale's  Judgment  of  the  Nature 
of  True  Religion,  1684. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  387 

eant  without  book  :"  and  then  his  lordship  turned  up  his  eyes, 
clasped  his  hands,  and  began  to  sing  through  his  nose,  in  imi- 
tation of  what  he  supposed  to  be  Baxter's  style  of  praying, 
"  Lord,  we  are  thy  people,  thy  peculiar  people,  thy  dear 
people."  Pollexfen  gently  reminded  the  court  that  his  late 
majesty  had  thought  Baxter  deserving  of  a  bishopric.  "And 
what  ailed  the  old  blockhead  then,"  cried  Jeffreys,  "  that  he 
did  not  take  it  ?  "  His  fury  now  rose  almost  to  madness.  He 
called  Baxter  a  dog,  and  swore  that  it  would  be  no  more  than 
justice  to  whip  such  a  villain  through  the  whole  city. 

Wallop  interposed,  but  fared  no  better  than  his  leader. 
''You  are  in  all  these  dirty  causes,  Mr.  Wallop,"  said  the 
judge.  "  Gentlemen  of  the  long  robe  ought  to  be  ashamed  to 
assist  such  factious  knaves."  The  advocate  made  another 
attempt  to  obtain  a  hearing,  but,  to  no  purpose.  "  If  you  do 
not  know  your  duty,"  said  Jeffreys,  "  I  will  teach  it  you." 

Wallop  sate  down ;  and  Baxter  himself  attempted  to  put  in 
a  word.  But  the  Chief  Justice  drowned  all  expostulation  in 
a  torrent  of  ribaldry  and  invective,  mingled  with  scraps  of 
Hudibras.  "  My  lord,"  said  the  old  man,  "  I  have  been  much 
blamed  by  dissenters  for  speaking  respectfully  of  bishops." 
"  Baxter  for  bishops  !  "  cried  the  judge  ;  "that's  a  merry  con- 
ceit indeed.  I  know  what  you  mean  by  bishops,  rascals  like 
yourself,  Kidderminster  bishops,  factious  snivelling  Presby- 
terians ! "  Again  Baxter  essayed  to  speak,  and  again  Jef- 
freys bellowed,  "  Richard,  Richard,  dost  thou  think  we 
will  let  'thee  poison  the  court  ?  Richard,  thou  art  an  old 
knave.  Thou  hast  written  books  enough  to  load  a  cart,  and 
every  book  as  full  of  sedition  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat.'  By 
the  grace  of  God,  I'll  look  after  thee.  I  see  a  great  many 
of  your  brotherhood  waiting  to  know  what  will  befall  their 
mighty  Don.  And  there,"  he  continued,  fixing  his  savage 
eye  on  Bates,  "  there  is  a  doctor  of  the  party  at  your  elbow. 
But,  by  the  grace  of  God  Almighty,  I  will  crush  you  all !  " 

Baxter  held  his  peace.  But  one  of  the  junior  counsel  for 
..he  defence  made  a  last  effort,  and  undertook  to  show  that 
he  words  of  which  complaint  was  made  would  not  bear  the 
Construction  put  on  them  by  the  information.  With  this  view 
.ie  began  to  read  the  context.  In  a  moment  he  was  roared 
down.  "  You  shan't  turn  the  court  into  a  conventicle  !  " 
The  noise  of  weeping  was  heard  from  some  of  those  who 
surrounded  Baxter.  "  Snivelling  calves  !  "  said  the  judge. 

Witnesses   to   character  were   in   attendance,  and  among 


388  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

them  were  several  clergymen  of  the  Established  Church. 
But  the  Chief  Justice  would  hear  nothing.  "  Does  your  lord- 
ship think,"  said  Baxter,  "  that  any  jury  will  convict  a  man 
on  such  a  trial  as  this."  "  I  warrant  you,  Mr.  Baxter,"  said 
Jeffreys.  "  Don't  trouble  yourself  about  that."  Jeffreys 
was  right.  The  sheriffs  were  the  tools  of  the  government. 
The  juries,  selected  by  the  sheriffs  from  among  the  fiercest 
zealots  of  the  Tory  party,  conferred  for  a  moment,  and  returned 
a  verdict  of  guilty.  "  My  lord,"  said  Baxter,  as  he  left  the 
court,  "  there  was  once  a  Chief  Justice  who  would  have 
treated  me  very  differently."  He  alluded  to  his  learned  and 
virtuous  friend  Sir  Matthew  Hale.  "  There  is  not  an  honest 
man  in  England,"  answered  Jeffreys,  "  but  looks  on  thee  as 
a  knave."  * 

The  sentence  was,  for  those  times,  a  lenient  one.  What 
passed  in  conference  among  the  judges  cannot  be  certainly 
known.  It  was  believed  among  the  Nonconformists,  and  is 
highly  probable,  that  the  Chief  Justice  was  overruled  by  his 
three  brethren.  He  proposed,  it  is  said,  that  Baxter  should 
be  whipped  through  London  at  the  cart's  tail.  The  majority 
thought  that  an  eminent  divine  who,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
before,  had  been  offered  a  mitre,  and  who  was  now  in  his 
seventieth  year,  would  be  sufficiently  punished  for  a  few 
sharp  words  with  fine  and  imprisonment.t 

The  manner  in  which  Baxter  was  treated  by  a  judge  who 
was  a  member  of  the  cabinet  and  a  favorite  of  the  sovereign 
indicated,  in  a  manner  not  to  be  mistaken,  the  feeling  with 
which  the  government  at  this  time  regarded  the  Protestant 
Nonconformists.  But  already  that  feeling  had  been  indicated 
by  still  stronger  and  more  terrible  signs.  The  parliament 
of  Scotland  had  met.  James  had  purposely  hastened  the 
session  of  this  body,  and  had  postponed  the  session  of  the 
English  Houses,  in  the  hope  that  the  example  set  at  Edinburgh 
would  produce  a  good  effect  at  Westminster.  For  the  legis- 
lature of  his  northern  kingdom  was  as  obsequious  as  those 
provincial  estates  which  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  still  suffered  to 
play  at  some  of  their  ancient  functions  in  Brittany  and  Bur- 
gundy. None  but  an  Episcopalian  could  sit  in  the  Scottish 

*  See  the  Observator  of  February  25,  1685,  the  information  in  tho 
Collection  of  State  Trials,  the  account  of  what  passed  in  court  given 
by  Calamy,  Life  of  Baxter,  chap,  xiv.,  and  the  very  curious  extracts 
fcom  the  Baxter  MSS.  in  the  Life,  by  Orme,  published  in  1830. 

t  Baxter  MS.  cited  by  Orme. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  389 

parliament,  or  could  vote  even  for  a  member ;  and  in  Scot- 
land an  Episcopalian  was  always  a  Tory.  From  an  assembly 
thus  constituted  little  opposition  to  the  royal  wishes  was  to  be 
apprehended ;  and  even  the  assembly  thus  constituted  could 
pass  no  law  which  had  not  been  previously  approved  by  a 
committee  of  courtiers. 

All  that  the  government  asked  was  readily  granted.  In  a 
financial  point  of  view,  indeed,  the  liberality  of  the  Scottish 
estates  was  of  little  consequence.  They  gave,  however,  what 
their  scanty  means  permitted.  They  annexed  in  perpetuity 
to  the  crown  the  duties  which  had  been  granted  to  the  late 
king,  and  which  in  his  time  had  been  estimated  at  forty 
thousand  pounds  sterling  a  year.  They  also  settled  on  James 
for  life  an  additional  annual  income  of  two  hundred  and  six- 
teen thousand  pounds  Scots,  equivalent  to  eighteen  thousand 
pounds  sterling.  The  whole  sum  which  they  were  able  to 
bestow  was  about  sixty  thousand  a  year,  little  more  than  what 
was  poured  into  the  English  exchequer  every  fortnight.* 

Having  little  money  to  give,  the  Estates  supplied  the  defect 
by  loyal  protestations  and  barbarous  statutes.  The  king,  in  a 
letter  which  was  read  to  them  at  the  opening  of  their  session, 
called  on  them  in  vehement  language  to  provide  new  penal 
laws  against  the  refractory  Presbyterians,  and  had  expressed 
his  regret  that  business  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  propose 
such  laws  in  person  from  the  throne.  His  commands  were 
obeyed.  A  statute  framed  by  the  ministers  of  the  crown  was 
promptly  passed,  which  stands  forth,  even  among  the  statutes 
of  that  unhappy  country  at  that  unhappy  period,  preeminent 
in  atrocity.  It  was  enacted  in  few  but  emphatic  words,  that 
whoever  should  preach  in  a  conventicle  under  a  roof,  or 
should  attend,  either  as  preacher  or  as  hearer,  a  conventicle 
in  the  open  air,  should  be  punished  with  death  and  confisca- 
tion of  property .t 

This  law,  passed  at  the  king's  instance  by  an  assembly 
devoted  to  his  will,  deserves  especial  notice.  For  he  has 
been  frequently  represented  by  ignorant  writers  as  a  prince 
rash,  indeed,  and  injudicious  in  his  choice  of  means,  but 

intent  on  one  of  the  noblest  ends  which  a  ruler  can  pursue, 

.       > . . 

*  Act  Parl.  Car.  II.  March  29,  1661 ;  Jac.  VH.  April  28,  1685,  and 
May  13,  1685. 

t  Act  Parl.  Jac.  VIL  May  8,  1685;  Observator,  June  20,  1685 
Lestrange  evidently  wished  to  see  the  precedent  followed  in  Eng 
land. 

33* 


390  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  establishment  of  entire  religious  liberty.  Nor  can  it  t>c 
doiiied  that  some  portions  of  his  life,  when  detached  from  ihd 
rest  and  superficially  considered,  seem  to  warrant  this  favor- 
able view  of  his  character.  While  a  subject  he  had  been, 
during  many  years,  a  persecuted  man  ;  and  persecution  had 
produced  its  usual  effect  on  him.  His  mind,  dull  and  narrow 
as  it  was,  had  profited  under  that  sharp  discipline.  While  he 
was  excluded  from  the  court,  from  the  admiralty,  and  from  the 
council,  and  was  in  danger  of  being  also  excluded  fiom  the 
throne,  only  because  he  could  not  help  believing  in  transubstan- 
tiation  and  in  the  authority  of  the  see  of  Rome,  he  made  such 
rapid  progress  in  the  doctrines  of  toleration,  that  he  left  Milton 
and  Locke  behind.  What,  he  often  said,  could  be  more  unjust, 
than  to  visit  speculations  with  penalties  which  ought  to  be 
reserved  for  acts  ?  What  more  impolitic  than  to  reject  the 
services  of  good  soldiers,  seamen,  lawyers,  diplomatists, 
financiers,  because  they  hold  unsound  opinions  about  the 
number  of  the 'sacraments  or  the  pluripresence  of  saints  ?  He 
learned  by  rote  the  commonplaces  which  all  sects  repeat  so 
fluently  when  they  are  enduring  oppression,  and  forget  so 
easily  when  they  are  able  to  retaliate  it.  Indeed  he  rehearsed 
his  lesson  so  well,  that  those  who  chanced  to  hear  him  on 
this  subject  gave  him  credit  for  much  more  sense  and  much 
'readier  elocution  than  he  really  possessed.  His  professions 
imposed  on  some  charitable  persons,  and  perhaps  imposed 
on  himself.  But  his  zeal  for  the  rights  of  conscience  ended 
with  the  predominance  of  the  Whig  party.  When  fortune 
changed,  when  he  was  no  longer  afraid  that  others  would 
persecute  -him,  when  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  persecute 
others,  his  real  propensities  began  to  show  themselves.  He 
hated  the  Puritan  sects  with  a  manifold  hatred,  theological 
and  political,  hereditary  and  personal.  He  regarded  them 
as  the  foes  of  Heaven,  as  the  foes  of  all  legitimate  authority 
in  church  and  state,  as  his  great- grand  mother's  foes  and  his 
grandfather's,  his  father's  and  his  mother's,  his  brother's  and 
his  own.  He,  who  had  complained  so  loudly  of  the  laws 
against  Papists,  now  declared  himself  unable  to  conceive  how 
men  could  have  the  impudence  to  propose  the  repeal  of  the 
laws  against  the  Puritans.*  He,  whose  favorite  theme  had 
been  the  injustice  of  requiring  civil  functionaries  to  take 

*  Hia  own  words  reported  by  himself.     Clarke's  Life  of  James  the 
Second,  i.  656,  Orig.  Mem. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  391 

religious  tests,  established  in  Scotland,  when  he  resided  there 
as  Viceroy,  the  most  rigorous  religious  test  that  has  ever  been 
known  in  the  empire.*  He,  who  had  expressed  just  indig- 
nation when  the  priests  of  his-  own  faith  were  hanged  and 
quartered,  amused  himself  with  hearing  Covenanters  shriek 
and  seeing  them  writhe  while  their  knees  were  beaten  flat  in 
the  boots.t  In  this  mood  he  became  king,  and  he  immediately 
demanded  and  obtained  from  the  obsequious  Estates  of  Scot- 
land, as  the  surest  pledge  of  their  loyalty,  the  most  sanguinary 
law  that  has  ever  in  our  islands  been  enacted  against  Prot- 
estant Nonconformists. 

With  this  law  the  whole  spirit  of  his  Administration  was  in 
perfect  harmony.  The  fiery  persecution  which  had  raged 
when  he  ruled  Scotland  as  Vicegerent,  waxed  hotter  than  ever 
from  the  day  on  which  he  became  sovereign.  Those  shires  in 
which  the  Covenanters  were  most  numerous  were  given  up  to 
the  license  of  the  army.  With  the  army  was  mingled  a  mili- 
tia, composed  of  the  most  violent  and  profligate  of  those  who 
Called  themselves  Episcopalians.  Preeminent  among  the  bands 
which  oppressed  and  wasted  these  unhappy  districts  were  the 
dragoons  commanded  by  James  Graham  of  Claverhouse.  The 
story  ran  that  these  wicked  men  used  in  their  revels  to  play  at 
the  torments  of  helj,  and  to  call  each  other  by  the  names  of 
devils  and  damned  souls. £  .The  chief  of  this  Tophet  on  earth, 
a  soldier  of  distinguished  courage  and  professional  skill,  but 
rapacious  and  profane,  of  violent  temper  and  of  obdurate  heart, 
has  left  a  name  which,  wherever  the  Scottish*  race  is  settled  on 
\\\e  face  of  the  globe,  is  mentioned  with  a  peculiar  energy  of 
natred.  To  recapitulate  all  the  crimes  by  which  this  man,  and 
:nen  like  him,  goaded  the  peasantry  of  the  Western  Lowlands 
into  madness,  would  be  an  endless  task.  A  few  instances 
must  suffice  ;  and  all  those  instances  shall  be  taken  from  the 
history  of  a  single  fortnight,  that  very  fortnight  in  which  the 
Scottish  Parliament,  at  the  urgent  request  of  James,  enacted  a 
new  law  of  unprecedented  severity  against  dissenters. 

John  Brown,  a  poor  carrier  of  Lanarkshire,  was,  for  his 
singular  piety,  commonly  called  the  Christian  carrier.  Many 
years  later,  when  Scotland  enjoyed  rest,  prosperity,  and 

*  Act  Parl.  Car.  II.  August  31,  1681. 

t  Burnet,  i.  583 ;  Wodrow,  III.  v.  2.  Unfortunately  the  Acta  of 
the  Scottish  Privy  Council  during  almost  the  whole  administration  of 
the  Duke  of  York  are  wanting. 

i  Wodrow,  III.  ix.  6. 


392  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

religious  freedom,  old  men.  who  remembered  the  evil  days 
described  him  as  one  versed  in  divine  things,  blameless  in  life 
and  so  peaceable  that  the  tyrants  could  find  no  offence  in  him 
except  that  he  absented  himself  from  the  public  worship  of  the 
Episcopalians.  On  the  first  of  May  he  was  cutting  turf,  when 
he  was  seized  by  Claverhouse's  dragoons,  rapidly  examined, 
convicted  of  Nonconformity,  and  sentenced  to  death.  It  is  said 
that,  even  among  the  soldiers,  it  was  not  easy  to  find  an  execu- 
tioner. For  the  wife  of  the  poor  man  was  present.  She  led 
one  little  child  by  the  hand  :  it  was  easy  to  see  that  she  was 
about  to  give  birth  to  another  ;  and  even  those  wild  and  hard- 
hearted men,  who  ^licknamed  one  another  Beelzebub  and 
Apollyon,  shrank  from  the  great  wickedness  of  butchering 
her  husband  before  her  face.  The  prisoner,  meanwhile,  raised 
above  himself  by  the  near  prospect  of  eternity,  prayed  loud  and 
fervently  as  one  inspired,  till  Claverhouse,  in  a  fury,  shot  him 
dead.  It  was  reported  by  credible  witnesses  that  the  widow 
cried  out  in  her  agony,  "  Well,  sir,  well ;  the  day  of  reckoning 
will  come  ;"  and  that  the  murderer  replied,  "To  man  I  can 
answer  for  what  I  have  done  ;  and  as  for  God,  I  will  take  him 
into  mine  own  hand  !  "  Yet  it  was  rumored  that  even  on  his 
seared  conscience  and  adamantine  heart  the  dying  ejaculations 
of  his  victim  made  an  impression  which  was  never  effaced.* 

On  the  fifth  of  May  two  artisans,  Peter  Gillies  and  John 
Bryce,  were  tried  in  Ayrshire  by  a  military  tribunal  consisting 
of  fifteen  soldiers.  The  indictment  is  still  extant.  The  pris- 
oners were  charged,  not  with  any  act  of  rebellion,  but  with 
holding  the  same  pernicious  doctrines  which  had  impelled 
others  to  rebel,  and  with  wanting  only  opportunity  to  act  upon 
those  doctrines.  The  proceeding  was  summary.  In  a  few 
hours  the  two  culprits  were  convicted,  hanged,  and  flung  to- 
gether into  a  hole  under  the  gallows.t 

The  eleventh  of  May  was  signalized  by  more  than  one  great 
crime.  Some  rigid  Calvinists  had  from  the  doctrine  of  repro- 
bation drawn  the  consequence  that  to  pray  for  any  person  who 
had  been  predestined  to  perdition  was  an  act  of  mutiny  against 
the  eternal  decrees  of  the  Supreme  Being.  Three  poor  la- 
boring men,  deeply  imbued  with  this  unamiable  divinity,  were 
arrested  by  an  officer  in  the  neighborhood  of  Glasgow.  They 
were  asked  whether  they  would  pray  for  King  James  the 
Seventh.  They  refused  to  do  so  except  under  the  condition 

*  Wodrow,  HI.  ix.  &  t  Ibid. 


HISTORY     OI     ENGLAND.  393 

_nat  he  was  one  of  the  elect.  A  file  of  musketeers  was  drawn 
out.  The  prisoners  knelt  down  :  they  were  blindfolded ;  and, 
within  an  hour  after  they  had  been  stopped,  their  blood  was 
lapped  up  by  the  dogs.* 

While  this  was  done  in  Clydesdale,  an  act  not  less  horrible 
was  perpetrating  in  Eskdale.  One  of  the  proscribed  Cove- 
nanters, overcome,  by  sickness,  had  found  shelter  in  the  house 
of  a  respectable  widow,  and  had  died  there.  "  The  corpse  was 
discovered  by  the  laird  of  Westerhall,  a  petty  tyrant  who  had, 
in  the  days  of  the  Covenant,  professed  inordinate  zeal  for 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  who  had,  since  the  Restoration,  pur- 
chased the  favor  of  the  government  by  apostasy,  and  who  felt 
towards  the  party  which  he  had  deserted  the  implacable  hatred 
of  an  apostate.  This  man  pulled  down  the  house  of  the  poor 
woman,  carried  away  her  furniture,  and,  leaving  her  and  her 
younger  children  to  wander  in  the  fields,  dragged  her  son  An- 
drew, who  was  still  a  lad,  before  Claverhouse,  who  happened 
to  be  marching  through  that  part  of  the  country.  Claverhouse 
was  that  day  strangely  lenient.  Some  thought  that  he  had  not 
been  quite  himself  since  the  death  of  the  Christian  carrier, 
ten  days  before.  But  Westerhall  was  eager  to  signalize 
his  loyalty,  and  extorted  a  sullen  consent.  The  guns  were 
loaded,  and  the  youth  was  told  to  pull  his  bonnet  over  his 
face.  He  refused,  and  stood  confronting  his  murderers  with 
the  Bible  in  his  hand.  "  I  can  look  you  in  the  face,"  he  said  ; 
"I  have  done  nothing  of  which  I  need  be  ashamed.  But 
how  will  you  look  in  that  day  when  you  shall  be  judged 
by  what  is  written  in  this  book  ?  "  He  fell  dead,  and  was 
buried  in  the  moor.t 

On  the  sarne  day  two  women,  Margaret  Maclachlan  and 
Margaret  Wilson,  the  former  an  aged  widow,  the  latter  a 
maiden  of  eighteen,  suffV  red  death  for  their  religion  in  Wig- 
tonshire.  They  were  offered  their  lives  if  they  would  consent 
o  abjure  the  cause  of  the  insurgent  Covenanters,  and  to  attend 
.he  Episcopal  worship.  They  refused,  and  they  were  sen- 
tenced to  be  drowned.  They  were  carried  to  a  spot  which 
the  Solway  overflows  twice  a  day,  and  fastened  to  stakes  fixed 
in  the  sand,  between  high  and  low  water  mark.  The  elder 
sufferer  was  placed  near  to  the  'advancing  flood,  in  the  hope 
that  her  last  agonies  might  terrify  the  younger  into  submission. 

*  Wodrow,  in.  ix.  6. 
t  Ibid.  HI.  ix.  6.    Cloud  of  Witnesses. 
33* 


394  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  sight  was  dreadfuK  But  the  courage  of  the  survivor  was 
sustained  by  an  enthusiasm  as  lofty  as  any  that  is  recorded  in 
martyrology.  She  saw  the  sea  draw  nearer  and  nearer,  but 
gave  no  sign  of  alarm.  She  prayed  and  sang  verses  of  psalms 
till  the  waves  choked  her  voice.  When  she  had  tasted  the  bit- 
terness of  death  she  was,  by  a  cruel  mercy,  unbound  and  re- 
stored to  life.  When  she  came  to  herself,  pitying  friends  and 
neighbors  implored  her  to  yield.  "  Dear  Margaret,  only  say, 
God  save  the  King ! "  The  poor  girl,  true  to  her  stern  theology, 
gasped  out,  "  May  God  save  him,  if  it  be  God's  will ! "  Her 
friends  crowded  round  the  presiding  officer.  "She  has  said 
it ;  indeed,  sir,  she  has  said  it."  "  Will  she  take  the  abjura- 
tion ? "  he  demanded.  "  Never ! "  she  exclaimed.  "  I  am 
Christ's ;  let  me  go  !  "  And  the  waters  closed  over  her  for 
the  last  time.* 

Thus  was  Scotland  governed  by  that  prince  whom  ignorant 
men  have  represented  as  a  friend  of  religious  liberty,  whose 
misfortune  it  was  to  be  too  wise  and  too  good  for  the  age  in  which 
he  lived.  Nay,  even  those  laws  which  authorized  him  to  gov- 
ern thus  were  in  his  judgment  reprehensibly  lenient.  While 
his  officers  were  committing  the  murders  which  have  just  been 
related,  he  was  urging  the  Scottish  parliament  to  pass  a  new 
act  compared  with  which  all  former  acts  might  be  called 
merciful. 

In  England  his  authority,  though  great,  was  circumscribed 
by  ancient  and  noble  laws  which  even  the  Tories  would  not 
patiently  have  seen  him  infringe.  Here  he  could  not  hurry 
dissenters  before  military  tribunals,  or  enjoy  at  council  the 
luxury  of  seeing  them  swoon  in  the  boots.  Here  he  could  not 
drown  young  girls  for  refusing  to  take  the  abjuration,  or  shoot 
poor  countrymen  for  doubting  whether  he  was  one  of  the 
elect.  Yet  even  in  England  he  continued  to  persecute  the 
Puritans  as  far  as  his  power  extended,  till  events  which  will 
hereafter  be  related  induced  him  to  form  the  design  of  uniting 

*  Wodrow,  III.  ix.  6.  The  epitaph  of  Margaret  Wilson,  in  the 
ehurchyard  at  Wigton,  is  printed  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Cloud  of 
Wif  nesses :  — 

"  Murdered  for  owning  Christ  supreme 
Head  of  his  Church,  and  no  more  crime, 
But  her  not  owning  Prelacy, 
And  not  abjuring  Presbytery ; 
Within  the  sea,  tied  to  a  stake, 
She  suffered  for  Christ  Jesus'  sake." 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  395 

Puritans  and   Papists  in  a  coalition  for  the   humiliation  and 
spoliation  of  the  Established  Church. 

One  sect  of  Protestant  dissenters  indeed  he,  even  at  this 
early  period  of  his  reign,  regarded  with  some  tenderness,  the 
Society  of  Friends.  His  partiality  for  that  singular  fraternity 
cannot  be  attributed  to  religious  sympathy ;  for,  of  all  who 
acknowledge  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus,  the  Roman  Catholic 
and  the  Quaker  differ  most  widely.  It  may  seem  paradoxical 
to  say  that  this  very  circumstance  constituted  a  tie  between 
the  Roman  Catholic  and  the  Quaker ;  yet  such  was  really  the 
case.  For  they  deviated  in  opposite  directions  so  far  from 
what  the  great  body  of  the  nation  regarded  as  right,  that  even 
liberal  men  generally  considered  them  both  as  lying  beyond 
the  pale  of  the  largest  toleration.  Thus  the  two  extreme 
sects,  precisely  because  they  were  extreme  sects,  had  a  com- 
mon interest,  distinct  from  the  interest  o&  the  intermediate 
Beets.  The  Quakers  were  also  guiltless  of  all  offence  against 
James  and  his  house.  They  had  not  been  in  existence  as  a 
community  till  the  war  between  his  father  and  the  Long  Par- 
liament was  drawing  towards  a  close.  They  had  been  cruelly 
persecuted  by  some  of  the  revolutionary  governments.  They 
had,  since  the  Restoration,  in  spite  of  much  ill  usage,  submit- 
ted themselves  meekly  to  the  royal  authority.  For  they  had, 
though  reasoning  on  premises  which  the  Anglican  divines 
regarded  as  heterodox,  arrived,  like  the  Anglican  divines,  at 
the  conclusion,  that  no  excess  of  tyranny  on  the  part  of  a 
prince  can  justify  active  resistance  on  the  part  of  a  subject. 
No  libel  on  the  government  had  ever  been  traced  to  a 
Quaker.*  In  no  conspiracy  against  the  government  had  a 
Quaker  been  implicated.  The  Society  had  not  joined  in  the 
clamor  for  the  Exclusion  Bill,  and  had  solemnly  condemned 
the  Rye  House  Plot  as  a  hellish  design  and  a  work  of  the 
devil.t  Indeed  the  Friends  then  took  very  little  part  in  civil 
contentions ;  for  they  were  not,  as  now,  congregated  in  large 
towns,  but  were  generally  engaged  in  agriculture,  a  pursuit 
from  which  they  have  been  gradually  driven  by  the  vexations 
consequent  on  their  strange  scruple  about  paying  tithe.  The 
were,  therefore,  far  removed  from  the  scene  of  political  strife. 
They  also,  even  in  domestic  privacy,  avoided  on  principle  all 
political  conversation.  For  such  conversation  was,  in  their 

*  See  the  letter  to  King  Charles  II.  prefixed  to  Barcls  y's  Apology 
t  Sewel's  History  of  the  Quakers,  book  x. 


396  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

opinion,  unfavorable  to  their  spirituality  of  mind,  and  tended 
to  dist-irb  the  austere  composure  of  their  deportment.  The 
yearly  meetings  of  that  age  repeatedly  admonished  the  breth- 
ren not  to  hold  discourse  touching  affairs  of  state.*  Even 
\viihin  the  memory  of  persons  now  living  those  grave  elders 
who  retained  the  habits  of  an  earlier  generation  systemat- 
ically discouraged  such  worldly  talk.t  It  was  natural  that 
James  should  make  a  wide  distinction  between  this  harmless 
race  and  those  fierce  and  restless  sects  which  considered 
resistance  to  tyranny  as  a  Christian  duty,  which  had,  in  Ger- 
many, France,  and  Holland,  made  war  on  legitimate  princes, 
and  which  had,  during  four  generations,  borne  peculiar  enmity 
to  the  House  of  Stuart. 

It  happened,  moreover,  that  it  was  possible  to  grant  large 
relief  to  the  Roman  Catholic  and  to  the  Quaker  without 
mitigating  the  sufferings  of  the  Puritan  sects.  A  law  which 
was  then  in  force  imposed  severe  penalties  on  every  person 
who  refused  to  take  the*  oath  of  supremacy  when  required  to 
do  so.  This  law  did  not  affect  Presbyterians,  Independents, 
or  Baptists  ;  for  they  were  all  ready  to  call  God  to  witness  that 
they  renounced  all  spiritual  connection  with  foreign  prelates 
and  potentates.  But  the  Roman  Catholic  would  not  swear 
that  the  pope  had  no  jurisdiction  in  England,  and  the  Quaker 
would  not  swear  to  any  thing.  On  the  other  hand,  neither 
the  Roman  Catholic  nor  the  Quaker  was  touched  by  the  Five 
Mile  Act,  which,  of  all  the  laws  in  the  Statute  Book,  was  per- 
haps the  most  annoying  to  the  Puritan  Nonconformists.! 

The  Quakers  had  a  powerful  and  zealous  advocate  at  court. 
Though,  as  a  class,  they  mixed  little  with  the  world,  and 
shunned  politics  as  a  pursuit  dangerous  to  their  spiritual  inter- 
ests, one  of  them,  widely  distinguished  from  the  rest  by  sta- 
tion and  fortune,  lived  in  the  highest  circles,  and  had  constant 
access  to  the  royal  ear.  This  was  the  celebrated  William 

•  Minutes  of  Yearly  Meeting,  1689,  1690. 

t  Clarkson  on  Quakerism ;  Peculiar  Customs,  chapter  v. 

j  After  this  passage  was  written,  I  found,  in  the  British  Museum, 
a  manuscript,  (Ilarl.  MS.  7506,)  entitled,  "An  Account  of  the  Seiz- 
ures, Sequestrations,  great  Spoil  and  Havock  made  upon  the  Estates 
of  the  several  Protestant  Dissenters  called  Qxiakers,  upon  Prosecution 
of  old  Statutes  made  against  Papist  and  Popish  Recusants."  The 
manuscript  is  marked  as  having  belonged  to  James,  and  appears  to 
have  been  given  by  his  confidential  servant,  Colonel  Graham,  to  Lord 
Oxford.  This  circumstance  appears  to  me  to  confirm  the  view  which 
I  have  taken  of  the  king's  conduct  towards  the  Quakers. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  397 

Penn.  His  father  had  held  grea;  naval  commands,  had  been 
a  commissioner  of  the  Admiralty,  had  sate  in  parliament,  had 

received  the  honor  of  knighthood,  and  had  been  encouraged  to 
expect  a  peerage.  The  son  had  been  liberally  educated,  and 
ha'd  been  designed  for  the  profession  of  arms,  but  had,  while 
still  young,  injured  his  prospects  and  disgusted  his  friends  by 
joining  what  was  then  generally  considered  as  a  gang  of  crazy 
heretics.  He  had  been  sent  sometimes  to  the  Tower,  and 
sometimes  to  Newgate.  He  had  been  tried  at  the  Old  Bailey 
for  preaching  in  defiance  of  the  law.  After  a  time,  how- 
ever, he  had  been  reconciled  to  his  family,  and  had  succeeded 

n  obtaining  such  powerful  protection,  that,  while  all  the  jails 
of  England  were  filled  with  his  brethren,  he  was  permitted, 
during  many  years,  to  profess  his  opinions  without  molesta- 
tion. Towards  the  close  of  the  late  reign  he  had  obtained,  in 
satisfaction  of  an  old  debt  due  to  him  from  the  crown,  the 
grant  of  an  immense  region  in  North  America.  In  this  tract, 
then  peopled  only  by  Indian"  hunters,  he  invited  his  persecuted 
friends  to  settle.  His  colony  was  still  in  its  infancy  when 
James  mounted  the  throne. 

Between  James  and  Penn  there  had  long  been  a  familiar 
acquaintance.  The  Quaker  now  became  a  courtier,  and 
almost  a  favorite.  He  was  every  day  summoned  from  the 
gallery  into  the  closet,  and  sometimes  had  long  audiences 
while  peers  were  kept  waiting  in  the  antechambers.  It  was 
noised  abroad  that  he  had  more  real  power  to  help  and  hurt 
than  many  nobles  who  filled  high  offices.  He  was  soon  sur- 
rounded by  flatterers  and  suppliants.  His  house  at  Kensing- 
ton was  sometimes  thronged,  at  his  hour  of  rising,  by  more 
than  two  hundred  suitors.  He  paid  dear,  however,  for  this 
seeming  prosperity.  Even  his  own  sect  looked  coldly  on 
him,  and  requited  his  services  with  obloquy.  He  was  loudly 
accused  of  being  a  Papist,  nay,  a  Jesuit.  Some  affirmed  that 
he  had  been  educated  at  St.  Omers,  and  others,  that  he  had 
been  ordained  at  Rome.  These  calumnies,  indeed,  could 
find  credit  only  with  the  undiscerning  multitude  ;  but  with 
these  calumnies  were  mingled  accusations  much  better 
founded.* 

*  Penn's  visits  to  Whitehall,  and  levees  at  Kensington,  are  de- 
scribed with  great  vivacity,  though  in  very  bad  Latin, -by  Gerard 
Croese.  "  Sumebat,"  he  says,  "  rex  ssepe  secrctum,  iion  horarium, 
vero  horarum  plurium,  in  quo  de  variis  rebus  cum  Penno  serio  ser- 
monem  conferebat,  et  interim  differebat  audire  prsecipuorutn  nobilium 

VOL.  i.  34 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

To  speak  the  whole  truth  concerning  Penn  is  a  task  whk.h 
requires  some  courage  ;  for  he  is  rather  a  mythical  than  a 
historical  person.  Rival  nations  and  hostile  sects  have  agreed 
in  canonizing  him.  England  is  proud  of  his  name.  A  great 
commonwealth  beyond  the  Atlantic  regards  him  with  a  rever- 
ence similar  to  that  which  the  Athenians  felt  for  Theseus, 
and  the  Romans  for  Quirinus.  The  respectable  society  of 
which  he  was  a  member  honors  him  as  an  apostle.  By  pioua 
men  of  other  persuasions  he  is  generally  regarded  as  a  brighi 
pattern  of  Christian  virtue.  Meanwhile  admirers  of  a  very 
different  sort  have  sounded  his  praises.  The  French  philoso- 
phers of  the  eighteenth  century  pardoned  what  they  regarded 
as  his  superstitious  fancies  in  consideration  of  his  contempt 
for  priests,  and  of  his  cosmopolitan  benevolence,  impartially 
extended  to  all  races  and  to  all  creeds.  His  name  has  thus 
become,  throughout  all  civilized  countries,  a  synonyme  for 
probity  and  philanthropy. 

Nor  is  this  high  reputation  altogether  unmerited.  Penn 
was  without  doubt  a  man  of  eminent  virtues.  He  had  a  strong 
sense  of  religious  duty  and  a  fervent  desire  to  promote  the 
happiness  of  mankind.  On  one  or  two  points  of  high  impor- 
tance he  had  notions  more  correct  than  were,  in  his  day, 
common  even  among  men  of  enlarged  minds ;  and,  as  the 
proprietor  and  legislator  of  a  province  which,  being  almost 
uninhabited  when  it  came  into  his  possession,  afforded  a  clear 
field  for  moral  experiments,  he  had  the  rare  good  fortune  of 
being  able  to  carry  his  theories  into  practice  without  any  com- 
promise, and  yet  without  any  shock  to  existing  institutions. 
He  will  always  be  mentioned  with  honor  as  a  founder  of  a 
colony,  who  did  not,  in  his  dealings  with  a  savage  people, 
abuse  the  strength  derived  from  civilization,  and  as  a  lawgiver, 
who,  in  an  age  of  persecution,  made  religious  liberty  the 
corner  stone  of  a  polity.  But  his  writings  and  his  life  furnish 
abundant  proofs  that  he  was  not  a  man  of  strong  sense.  He 
had  no  skill  in  reading  the  characters  of  others.  His  con- 
fidence in  persons  less  virtuous  than  himself  led  him  into 

ordincm,  qui  hoc  interim  spatio  in  proccetone,  in  proximo,  regem 
eonventum  praesto  erant."  Of  the  crowd  of  suitors  at  Penn's  house, 
Croese  says,  "  Vidi  quandoque  de  hoc  gencre  hominum  non  minus  bis 
centum."  •  His  evidence  as  to  the  feeling  with  which  Penn  was  re- 
garded by  his  brethren  is  clear  and  full.  "  Etiam  Quakeri  Pennura 
non  amplius,  ut  ante,  ita  amabant  ac  magnifaciabant,  quidam  aversa- 
bantur  ac  fugiobant."  —  Historia  Quakeriana.  W>  ii.  1695. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  399 

g  «tt  errors  and  misfortunes.  His  enthusiasm  for  one  great 
principle  sometimes  impelled  him  to  violate  other  great  princi- 
ples which  he  ought  to  have  held  sacred.  Nor  was  his  integrity 
altogether  proof  against  the  temptations  to  which  it  was  exposed 
in  that  splendid  and  polite,  but  deeply  corrupted  society,  with 
which  he  now  mingled.  The  whole  court  was  in  a  ferment 
with  intrigues  of  gallantry  and  intrigues  of  ambition.  The 
traffic  in  honors,  places,  and  pardons  was  incessant.  It  was 
natural  that  a  man  who  was  daily  seen  at  the  palace,  and  who 
was  known  to  have  free  access  to  majesty,  should  be  fre- 
quently importuned  to  use  his  influence  for  purposes  which  a 
rigid  morality  must  condemn.  The  integrity  of  Penn  had 
stood  firm  against  obloquy  and  persecution.  But  now,  attacked 
by  royal  smiles,  by  female  blandishments,  by  the  insinuat- 
ing eloquence  and  delicate  flattery  of  veteran  diplomatists 
and  courtiers,  his  resolution  began  to  give  way.  Titles  and 
phrases  against  which  he  had  often  borne  his  testimony  dropped 
occasionally  from  his  lips  and  his  pen.  It  would  be  well  if 
he  had  been  guilty  of  nothing  worse  than  such  compliances 
with  the  fashions  of  the  world.  Unhappily  it  cannot  be 
concealed  that  he  bore  a  chief  part  in  some  transactions 
condemned,  not  merely  by  the  rigid  code  of  the  society  to 
which  he  belonged,  but  by  the  general  sense  of  all  honest 
men.  He  afterwards  solemnly  protested  that  his  hands  were 
pure  from  illicit  gain,  and  that  he  had  never  received  any 
gratuity  from  those  whom  he  had  obliged,  though  he  might 
easily,  while  his  influence  at  court  lasted,  have  made  a  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  pounds.*  To  this  assertion  full  credit 
is  due.  But  bribes  may  be  offered  to  vanity  as  well  as  to 
cupidity ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  Penn  was  cajoled 
into  bearing  a  part  in  some  unjustifiable  transactions  of  which 
others  enjoyed  the'  profits. 

The  first  use  which  he  made  of  his  credit  was  highly  com- 
mendable. He  strongly  represented  the  sufferings  of  '-he 
Quakers  to  the  new  king,  .who  saw  with  pleasure  that  it  was 
possible  to  grant  indulgence  to  these  quiet  sectaries  and  to  the 
Roman  Catholics,  without  showing  similar  favor  to  other 
classes  which  were  then  under  persecution.  A  list  was  framed 
of  persons  against  whom  proceedings  had  been  instituted  for 
not  taking  the  oaths,  or  for  not  going  to  church,  and  of  whose 

*  "Twenty  thousand  into  my  pocket,  and  a  hundred  thousand 
into  my  province."  —  Penn's  Letter  to  Popple. 


400  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND 

loyalty  certificates  had  been  produced  to  the  government 
These  persons  were  discharged,  and  orders  were  given  that 
no  similar  proceeding  should  be  instituted  till  the  royal  pleas- 
ure should  be  further  signified.  In  this  way  about  fifteen 
hundred  Quakers,  and  a  still  greater  number  of  Roman  Cath 
olics,  regained  their  liberty.* 

And  now  the  time  had  arrived  when  the  English  parliament 
was  to  meet.  The  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  who 
had  repaired  to  the  capital  we're  so  numerous  that  there  was 
much  doubt  whether  their  chamber,  as  it  was  then  fitted  up, 
would  afford  ^sufficient  accommodation  for  them.  They  em- 
ployed'the  days  which  immediately  preceded  the  opening  of 
the  session  in  talking  over  public  affairs  with  each  other  and 
with  the  agents  of  the  government.  A  great  meeting  of  the 
loyal  party  was  held  at  the  Fountain  Tavern  in  the  Strand ; 
and  Roger  Lestrange,  who  had  recently  been  knighted  by  the 
king,  and  returned  to  parliament  by  the  city  of  Winchester, 
took  a  leading  part  in  their  consultations.t 

It  soon  appeared  that  a  large  portion  of  the  Commons  had 
views  which  did  not  altogether  agree  with  those  of  the  court. 
The  Tory  country  gentlemen  were,  with  scarcely  one  excep- 
tion, desirous  to  maintain  the  Test  Act  and  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act ;  and  some  among  them  talked  of  voting  the  revenue 
only  for  a  term  of  years.  But  they  were  perfectly  ready  to 
enact  severe  laws  against  the  Whigs,  and  would  gladly  have 
seen  all  the  supporters  of  the  Exclusion  Bill  made  incapable 
of  holding  office.  The  king,  on  the  other  hand,  desired  to 
obtain  from  the  parliament  a  revenue  for  life,  the  admission 
of  Roman  Catholics  to  office,  and  the  repeal  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act.  On  these  three  objects  his  heart  was  set ;  and 
he  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  accept  as  a  substitute  for 
them  a  penal  law  against  Exclusionists.  Such  a  law,  indeed, 
would  have  been  positively  unpleasing  to  him ;  for  one  class 

*  These  orders,  signed  by  Sunderland,  will  be  found  in  Bowel's 
History.  They  bear  date  April  18,  1685.  They  arc  written  in  a  style 
singularly  obscure  and  intricate ;  but  I  think  that  I  have  exhibited 
the  meaning  correctly.  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  proof  that 
any  person,  not  a  Roman  Catholic  or  a  Quaker,  regained  his  freedom 
under  these  orders.  See  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  vol.  ii. 
chap.  ii.  Gerard  Croese,  lib.  ii.  Croese  estimates  the  number  of 
Quakers  liberated  at  fourteen  hundred  and  six'.y. 

t  Barillon,  ~^y ,  1685  ;  Observator,  May  27,  1685  ;  Sir  J.  Reresby'i 
Memoirs. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  401 

of  Exclusionists  stood  high  in  his  favor,  that  class  of  which 
Sunderland  was  Unrepresentative,  that  class  which  had  joined 
the  Whigs  in  the  days  of  the  plot,  merely  because  the  Whigs 
were  predominant,  and  which  had  changed  with  the  change 
of  fortune.  James  justly  regarded  these  renegades  as  the 
most  serviceable  tools  that  he  could  employ.  It  was  not 
from  the  stout-hearted  Cavaliers  who  had  been  true  to  him 
in  his  adversity,  that  he  could  expect  abjefct  and  unscrupulous 
obedience  in  his  prosperity.  The  men  who,  impelled,  not  by 
zeal  for  liberty  or  for  religion,  but  merely  by  selfish  cupidity 
and  selfish  fear,  had  assisted  to  oppress  him  when  he  was 
weak,  were  the  very  men  who,  impelled  by  the  same  cupid- 
ity and  the  same  fear,  would  assist  Turn  to  oppress  his  people 
now  that  he  was  strong.*  Though  vindictive,  he  was  not 
indiscriminately  vindictive.  Not  a  single  instance  can  be  men- 
tioned in  which  he  showed  a  generous  compassion  to  those  who 
had  opposed  him  honestly  and  on  public  grounds.  But  he 
frequently  spared  and  promoted  those  whom  some  vile  motive 
had  induced  to  injure  him.  For  that  meanness  which  marked 
them  out  as  fit  implements  of  tyranny  was  so  precious  in  his 
estimation  that  he  regarded  it  with  some  indulgence  even  when 
it  was  exhibited  at  his  own  expense. 

The  king's  wishes  were  communicated  through  several 
channels  to  the  Tory  members  of  the  Lower  House.  The 
majority  was  easily  persuaded  to  forego  all  thoughts  of  a 
penal  law  against  the  Exclusionists,  and  to  consent  that  his 
majesty  should  have  the  revenue  for  life.  But,  touching  the 
Test  Act  and  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  the  emissaries  of  the 
court  could  obtain  no  satisfactory  assurances.! 

On  the  nineteenth  of  May  the  session  was  opened.  The 
benches  of  the  Commons  presented  a  singular  spectacle. 
That  great  party  which,  in  the  last  three  parliaments,  had 
been  predominant,  had  now  dwindled  to  a  pitiable  minority 
and  was  indeed  little  more  than  a  fifteenth  part  of  the  House. 
Of  the  five  hundred  and  thirteen  knights  and  burgesses  only 
a  hundred  and  thirty-five  had  ever  sate  in  that  place  before. 

*  Lewis  wrote  to  Barillon  about  this  class  of  Exclusionists  as 
follows :  "  L'interet  qu'ils  auront  a  effacer  cette  t&che  par  des  services 
considerables  les  portera,  seloii  toutes  les  ipparences,  £  le  servir  plus 
utilement  que  ne  pourroient  faire  ceux  qui  ont  toujours  ete  les  plus 
attaches  a  sa  personne."  May  £f,  1685. 

t  Barillon,  May  -A-,  1685  ;  Sir  John  Beresby's  Memoirs. 
34* 


402  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

It  is  evident  that  a  body  of  men  so  raw  and  inexperienced 
must,  have  been,  in  some  important  qualities,  far  below  the 
average  of  our  representative  assemblies.* 

The  management  of  the  House  was  confided  by  James  to 
two  peers  of  the  kingdom  of  Scotland.  One  of  them,  Charles 
Middleton,  Earl  of  Middleton,  after  holding  high  office  at 
Edinburgh,  had,  shortly  before  the  death  of  the  late  king, 
been  sworn  of  the  English  privy  council  and  appointed  one 
of  the  secretaries  of  state.  With  him  was  joined  Richard 
Graham,  Viscount  Preston,  who  had  long  held  the  post  of 
envoy  at  Versailles. 

The  first  business  of  the  Commons  was  to  elect  a  speaker. 
Who  should  be  the  man,  was  a  question  which  had  heen  much 
debated  in  the  cabinet.  Guildford  had  recommended  Sir 
Thomas  Meres,  who,  like  himself,  ranked  among  the  Trimmers. 
Jeffreys,  who  missed  no  opportunity  of  crossing  the  lord  keeper, 
had  pressed  the  claims  of  Sir  John  Trevor.  Trevor  had  been 
bred  half  a  pettifogger  and  half  a  gambler,  had  brought  to 
political  life  sentiments  and  principles  worthy  of  both  his  call- 
.ngs,  had  become  a  parasite  of  the  chief  justice,  and  could, 
on  occasion,  imitate,  not  unsuccessfully,  the  vituperative  style 
of  his  patron.  The  minion  of  Jeffreys  was,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  preferred  by  James,  was  proposed  by  Middle- 
ton,  and  was  chosen  without  opposition.! 

Thus  far  all  went  smoothly.  But  an  adversary  of  no  com 
mon  prowess  was  watching  his  time.  This  was  Edward 
Seymour  of  Berry  Pomeroy  Castle,  member  for  the  city  of 
Exeter.  Seymour's  birth  put  him  on  a  level  with  the  noblest 
subjects  in  Europe.  He  was  the  right  heir  male  of  the  body 
of  that  Duke  of  Somerset  who  had  been  brother-in-law  of 
King  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  Protector  of  the  realm  of  Eng- 
land. In  the  original  limitation  of  the  dukedom  of  Somerset, 
the  elder  son  of  the  Protector  had  been  postponed  to  the 
younger  son.  From  the  younger  son  the  dukes  of  Somerset 
were  descended.  From  the  elder  son  was  descended  the 
family  which  dwelt  at  Berry  Pomeroy.  Seymour's  fortune 
was  large,  and  his  influence  in  the  west  of  England  extensive. 
Nor  was  the  importance  derived  from  descent  and  wealth  the 
only  importance  which  belonged  to  him.  He  was  one  of  th« 
most  skilful  debaters  and  men  of  business  in  the  kingdom 

•  Burnet,  i.  626  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  22,  1685. 

t  Koger  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  218  ;  Bramgton's  Memoir* 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  403 

He  had  sate  many  years  in  the  House  of  Commons,  had 
studied  all  its  rules  and  usages,  and  thoroughly  understood 
its  peculiar  temper.  He  had  been  elected  speaker  in  tho 
late  reign  under  circumstances  which  made  that  distinction 
peculiarly  honorable.  During  several  generations  none  but 
lawyers  had  been  called  to  the  chair ;  and  he  was  the  first 
country  gentleman  whose  abilities  and  acquirements  enabled 
him  to  break  that  long  prescription.  He  had  subsequently 
held  high  political  office,  and  had  sate  in  the  cabinet.  But  his 
haughty  and  unaccommodating  temper  had  given  so  much 
disgust  that  he  had  been  forced  to  retire.  He  was  a  Toiy  and 
a  Churchman.  He  had  strenuously  opposed  the  Exclusion 
Bill ;  he  had  been  persecuted  by  the  Whigs  in  the  day  of  their 
prosperity ;  and  he  could  therefore  safely  venture  to  hold  lan- 
guage in  the  House  for  which  any  person  suspected  of  repub- 
licanism would  have  been .  sent  to  the  Tower.  He  had  long 
been  at  the  head  of  a  strong  parliamentary  connection,  which 
was  called  the  Western  Alliance,  and  which  included  many 
gentlemen  of  Devonshire,  Somersetshire,  and  Cornwall.* 

In  every  House  of  Commons  a  man  who  unites  eloquence, 
knowledge,  and  habits  of  business,  to  opulence  and  illustrious 
descent  must  be  highly  considered.  But,  in  a  House  of  Com- 
mons from  which  many  of  the  eminent  orators  and  parlia- 
mentary tacticians  of  the  age  were  excluded,  and  which  was 
crowded  with  people  who  had  never  heard  a  debate,  the  influ- 
ence of  such  a  man  was  peculiarly  formidable.  Weight  of 
moral  character  was  indeed  wanting  to  Edward  Seymour. 
He  was  licentious,  profane,  corrupt,  too  proud  .to  behave  with 
common  politeness,  yet  not  too  proud  to  pocket  illicit  gain. 
But  he  was  so  useful  an  ally,  and  so  mischievous  an  enemy, 
that  he  was  frequently  courted  even  by  those  who  most 
detested  him.t 

He  was  now  in  bad  humor  with  the  court.  His  interest  had 
been  weakened  in  some  places  by  the  remodelling  of  the 
western  boroughs  ;  his  pride  had  been  wounded  by  the  eleva- 
tion of  Trevor  to  the  chair ;  and  he  took  an  early  opportunity 
of  avenging  himself. 

On  the  twenty-second  of  May  the  Commons  were  sum- 
moned to  the  bar  of  the  Lords ;  and  the  king,  seated  on  his 


*  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  228. 

t  Burnet,  i.  382 ;  Rawdon  Papers ;  Lord  Conway  to  Sir  George 
Rawdon,  Dec.  28,  1677. 


404  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

throne,  made  Jt  speech  to  both  Houses.  He  declared  himself 
resolved  to  maintain  the  established  government  in  church  and 
state.  But  he  weakened  the  effect  of  this  declaration  by 
addressing  an  extraordinary  admonition  to  the  Commons.  He 
was  apprehensive,  he  said,  that  they  might  be  inclined  to  dole 
out  money  to  him,  from  time  to  time,  in  the  hope  that  they 
should  thus  force  him  to  call  them  frequently  together.  But 
he  must  warn  them  that  he  was  not  to  be  so  dealt  with, 
and  that,  if  they  wished  him  to  meet  them  often,  they  must 
use  him  well.  As  it  was  evident  that  without  money  the  gov- 
ernment could  not  be  carried  on,  these  expressions  plainly 
implied  that,  if  they  did  not  give  him  as  much  money  as  he 
wished,  he  would  take  it.  Strange  to  say,  this  harangue  was 
received  with  loud  cheers  by  the  Tory  gentlemen  at  the  bar. 
Such  acclamations  were  then  usual.  It  has  now  been,  during 
many  years,  the  grave  and  decorous  usage  of  parliaments  to 
hear,  in  respectful  silence,  all  expressions,  acceptable  or  unac- 
ceptable, which  are  uttered  from  the  throne.* 

It  was  then  the  custom  that,  after  the  king  had  concisely 
Explained  his  reasons  for  calling  parliament  together,  the  min- 
ister who  held  the  great  seal  should,  at  more  length,  explair 
to  the  Houses  the  state  of  public  affairs.  Guildford,  in  imi- 
tation of  his  predecessors,  Clarendon,  Bridgeman,  Shaftesbury, 
and  Nottingham,  had  prepared  an  elaborate  oration,  but  found, 
to  his  great  mortification,  that  his  services  were  not  wanted.t 

As  soon  as  the  Commons  had  returned  to  their  own  cham- 
ber, it  was  proposed  that  they  should  resolve  themselves  into 
a  committee,  fpr  the  purpose  of  settling  a  revenue  on  the 

king- 
Then  Seymour  stood  up.  How  he  stood,  looking  like  what 
he  was,  the  chief  of  a  dissolute  and  high-spirited  gentry,  with 
the  artificial  ringlets  clustering  in  fashionable  profusion  round 
his  shoulders,  and  a  mingled  expression  of  voluptuousness  and 
disdain  in  his  eye  and  on  his  lip,  the  likenesses  of  him  which 
still  remain  enable  us  to  imagine.  It  was  not,  the  haughty 
Cavalier  said,  his  wish  that  the  parliament  should  withhold  from 
the  crown  the  means  of  carrying  on  the  government.  But 
was  there  indeed  a  parliament?  Were  there  not  on  the 
benches  many  men  who  had,  as  all  the  world  knew,  no  right 
to  sit  there,  many  men  whose  elections  were  tainted  by  cor- 

.    *  London  Gazette,  May  25,  1685 ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  22,  1685 
t  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  256. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  405 

ruption,  many  men  forced  by  intimidation  on  rc'uctant  voters, 
and  many  men  returned  by  corporations  which  had  no  legal 
existence  ?  Had  not  constituent  bodies  been  remodelled,  in 
defiance  of  royal  charters  and  of  immemorial  prescription  ? 
Had  not  returning  officers  been  every  where  the  unscrupulous 
agents  of  the  court  ?  Seeing  that  the  very  principle  of  rep- 
resentation had  been  thus  systematically  attacked,  he  knew 
not  how  to  call  the  throng  of  gentlemen  which  he  saw  round 
him  by  the  hoflorable  name  of  a  House  of  Commons.  Yet 
never  was  there  a  time  when  it  more  concerned  the  public 
weal  that  the  character  of  the  parliament  should  stand  high. 
Great  dangers  impended  over  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  con- 
stitution of  the  realm.  It  was  matter  of  vulgar  notoriety,  it 
was  matter  which  required  no  proof,  that  the  Test  Act,  the 
rampart  of  religion,  and  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  the  rampart 
of  liberty,  were  marked  out  for  destruction.  "  Before  we 
proceed  to  legislate  on  questions  so  momentous,  let  us  at  least 
ascertain  whether  we  really  are  a  legislature.  Let  our  first 
proceeding  be  to  inquire  into  the  manner  in  which  the  elections 
have  been  conducted.  And  let  us  look  to  it  that  the  inquiry 
be  impartial.  For,  if  the  nation  shall  find  that  no  redress  is 
to  be  obtained  by  peaceful  methods,  we  may  perhaps  ere  long 
suffer  the  justice  which  we  refuse  to  do."  He  concluded  by 
moving  that^before  any  supply  was  granted,  the  House  would 
take  into  consideration  petitions  against  returns,  and  that  no 
member  whose  right  to  sit  was  disputed  should  be  allowed  to 
vote. 

Not  a  cheer  was  heard.  Not  a  member  ventured  to  second 
the  motion.  Indeed,  Seymour  had  said  much  that  no  other 
man  could  have  said  with  impunity.  The  proposition  fell  to 
the  ground,  and  was  not  even  entered  on  the  journals.  But  a 
mighty  effect  had  been  produced.  Barillon  informed  his  mas- 
ter that  many  who  had  not  dared  to  applaud  that  remarkable 
speech  had  cordially  approved  of  it,  that  it  was  the  univer- 
sal subject  of  conversation  throughout  London,  and  that  the 
impression  made  on  the  public  mind  seemed  likely  to  be 
durable.* 

The    Commons  went  into  committee  without  delay,  and 

*    Burnet,   i.   639  ;    Evelyn's    Diary,    May    22,   1685  ;    Barillon, 
— •£-»  and  —  — ,  1685.    The  silence  cf  the  journals  perplexed  Mr. 
Fox  :  but  it  is  explained  by  the  circumstance  that  Seymour's  mo- 
tion was  not  seconded. 


406  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

voted  to  the  king,  for  life,  the  whole  revenue  enjoyed  bj  }.i* 
brother.* 

The  zealous  churchmen,  who  formed  the  majority  of  the 
House,  seem  to  have  been  of  opinion  that  the  promptitude 
with  which  they  had  met  the  wish  of  James  touching  the  rev- 
enue entitled  them  to  expect  some  concession  on  his  part. 
They  said  that  much  had  been  done  to  gratify  him,  and  that 
they  must  now  do  something  to  gratify  the  nation.  The 
House,  therefore,  resolved  itself  into  a  committee  of  religion, 
in  order  to  consider  the  best  means  of  providing  for  the  secu- 
rity of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment.  In  that  committee, 
two  resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted.  The  first  ex- 
pressed fervent  attachment  to  the  Church  of  England.  The 
second  called  on  the  king  to  put  in  execution  the  penal  laws 
against  all  persons  who  were  not  members  of  that  church.t 

The  Whigs  would  doubtless  have  wished  to  see  the  Protes- 
tant dissenters  tolerated,  and  the  Roman  Qatholics  alone  per- 
secuted. But  the  Whigs  were  a  small  and  a  disheartened 
minority.  They  therefore  kept  themselves  as  much  as  possi- 
ble out  of  sight,  dropped  their  party  name,  abstained  from 
obtruding  their  peculiar  opinions,  on  a  hostile  audience,  and 
steadily  supported  every  proposition  tending  to  disturb  the 
harmony  which  as  yet  subsisted  between  the  parliament  and 
the  court. 

When  the  proceedings  of  the  committee  of  religion  were 
known  at  Whitehall,  the  king's  anger  was  great.  Nor  can  we 
justly  blame  him  for  resenting  the  conduct  of  the  Tories.  If 
they  were  disposed  to  insist  on  the  rigorous  execution  of  the 
penal  code,  they  clearly  ought  to  have  supported  the  Exclu- 
sion Bill.  For  to  place  a  Papist  on  the  throne,  and  then  to 
insist  on  his  persecuting  to  the  death  the  teachers  of  that  faith 
in  which  alone,  on  his  principles,  salvation  could  be  found, 
was  monstrous.  In  mitigating  by  a  lenient  administration  the 
severity  of  the  bloody  laws  of  Elizabeth,  the  king  violated  no 
constitutional  principle.  He  only  exerted  a  power  which  has 
always  belonged  to  the  crown.  Nay,  he  only  did  what  was 
afterwards  done  by  a  succession  of  sovereigns  zealous  for  the 
doctrines  of  the  Reformation,  by  William,  by  Anne,  and  by 
the  princes  of  the  House  of  Brunswick.  Had  he  suffered 
Roman  Catholic  priests,  whose  lives  he  could  save  withou* 

*  Journals,  May  22.     Stat.  Jac.  H.  i.  1. 

t  Journals,  May  26,  27.     Sir  J.  Reresby's  Memoirs. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  407 

infringing  any  law,  to  be  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered,  for 
discharging  what  he  considered  as  their  first  duty,  he  would 
have  drawn  on  himself  the  hatred  and  contempt  even  of  those 
to  whose  prejudices  he  had  made  so  shameful  a  concession ; 
and,  had  he  contented  himself  with  granting  to  the  members 
of  his  own  church  a  practical  toleration  by  a  large  exercise 
of  his  unquestioned  prerogative  of  mercy,  posterity  would 
have  unanimously  applauded  him. 

The  Commons  probably  felt  on  reflection  that  they  had 
acted  absurdly.  They  were  also  disturbed  by  learning  that 
the  king,  to  whom  they  looked  up  with  superstitious  reverence, 
was  greatly  provoked.  They  made  haste,  therefore,  to  atone 
for  their  offence.  In  the  House  they  unanimously  reversed 
the  decision  which  in  the  committee  they  had  unanimously 
adopted,  and  passed  a  resolution  importing  that  they  relied 
with  entire  confidence  on  his  majesty's  gracious  promise  to 
protect  that  religion  which  was  dearer  to  them  than  life 
itself.* 

Three  days  later  the  king  informed  the  House  that  his 
brother  had  left  some  debts,  and  that  the  stores  of  the  navy 
and  ordnance  were  nearly  exhausted.  It  was  promptly  re- 
solved that  new  taxes  should  be  imposed.  The  person  on 
whom  devolved  the  task  of  devising  ways  and  means  was  Sir 
Dudley  North,  younger  brother  of  the  lord  keeper.  Dudley 
North  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  of  his  time.  He  had  early 
in  life  been  sent  to  the  Levant,  where  he  had  been  long  en- 
gaged in  mercantile  pursuits.  Most  men  would,  in  such  a 
situation,  have  allowed  their  faculties  to  rust.  For  at  Smyrna 
and  Constantinople  there  were  few  books  and  few  intelligent 
companions.  But  the  young  factor  had  one  of  those  vigor- 
ous understandings  which  are  ^independent  of  external  aids. 
In  his  solitude  he  meditated  deeply  on  the  philosophy  of  trade, 
and  thought  out  by  degrees  a  complete  and  admirable  theory, 
substantially  the  same  with  that  which,  a  hundred  years  later, 
was  expounded  by  Adam  Smith.  After  an  exile  of  many 
years  Dudley  North  returned  to  England  with  a  large  fortune, 
md  commenced  business  as  a  Turkey  merchant  in  the  city  of 
London.  His  profound  knowledge,  botn  speculative  and  prac- 
tical, of  commercial  matters,  and  the  perspicuity  and  liveliness 
with  which  he  explained  his  views,  speedily  introduced  him  to 
the  notice  of  statesmen.  The  government  found  in  him  at 

*  Commons'  Journals,  May  37,  1685. 


408  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

once  an  enlightened  adviser  and  an  unscrupulous  slave.  For 
with  his  rare  mental  endowments  were  joined  lax  principles 
and  an  unfeeling  heart.  When  the  Tory  reaction  was  in  full 
progress,  he  had  consented  to  be  made  sheriff  for  the  express 
purpose  of  assisting  the  vengeance  of  the  court.  His  juries 
had  never  failed  to  find  verdicts  of  guilty  ;  and,  on  a  day  of 
judicial  butchery,  carts,  loaded  with  the  legs  and  arms  of 
quartered  Whigs,  were,  to  the  great  discomposure  of  his  lady, 
driven  to  his  fine  house  in  Basinghall  Street  for  orders.  His 
services  had  been  rewarded  with  the  honor  of  knighthood, 
with  an  alderman's  g:>wn,  and  with  the  office  of  commissioner 
of  the  customs.  He  had  been  brought  into  parliament  for 
Banbury,  and,  though  a  new  member,  was  the  person  on  whom 
the  lord  treasurer  chiefly  relied  for  the  conduct  of  financial 
business  in  the  Lower  House.* 

Though  the  Commons  were  unanimous  in  their  resolution 
to  grant  a  further  supply  to  the  crown,  they  were  by  no  means 
agreed  as  to  the  sources  from  which  that  supply  should  be 
drawn.  It  was  speedily  determined  that  part  of  the  sum 
which  was  required  should  be  raised  by  laying  an  additional 
impost,  for  a  term  of  eight  years,  on  wine  and  vinegar ;  but 
something  more  than  this  was  needed.  Several  absurd  schemes 
were  suggested.  Many  country  gentlemen  were  disposed  to 
put  a  heavy  tax  on  all  new  buildings  in  the  capital.  Such  a 
tax,  it  was  hoped,  would  check  the  growth  of  a  city  which  had 
long  been  regarded  with  jealousy  and  aversion  by  the  ruraJ 
aristocracy.  Dudley  North's  plan  was,  that  additional  duties 
should  be  imposed,  for  a  term  of  eight  years,  on  sugar  ana 
tobacco.  A  great  clamor  was  raised.  Colonial  merchants, 
grocers,  sugar-bakers,  and  tobacconists,  petitioned  the  House 
and  besieged  the  public  offices.  The  people  of  Bristol,  who 
were  deeply  interested  in  the  trade  with  Virginia  and  Jamaica, 
sent  up  a  deputation  which  was  heard  at  the  bar  of  the  Com- 
mons. Rochester  was  for  a  moment  staggered  ;  but  North's 
ready  wit  and  perfect  knowledge  of  trade  prevailed,  both  in 
the  Treasury  and  in  the  parliament,  against  all  opposition. 
The  old  members  w^re  annoyed  at  seeing  a  man  who  had 
not  been  a  fortnight  in  the  House,  and  whose  life  had  been 
chiefly  passed  in  foreign  countries,  assume  with  confidence, 
/ __ 

*  Roger  North's  Life  of  Sir  Dudley  North ;  Life  of  Lord  Guili- 
ford,  166 ;  M'Culloch's  Literature  of  Political  Economy. 


HISTORY    01'    ENGLAND. 

and  discharge  with  ability,  all  the  functions  of  a  chancelLi 
of  the  Exchequer.*  .» 

His  plan -was  adopted;  and  thus  the  crown  was  in  posses- 
sion of  a  clear  income  of  about  nineteen  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  derived  from  England  alone.  Such  an  income  was 
then  more  than  sufficient  for  the  support  of  the  government  in 
time  of  peace .t 

The  Lords  had,  in  the  mean  time,  discussed  several  important 
questions.  The  Tory  party  had  always  been  strong  among 
the  peers.  It  included  the  whole  bench  of  bishops,  and  had 
been  reenforced,  during  the  four  years  which  had  elapsed 
since  -the  last  dissolution,  by  several  fresh  creations.  Of  the 
new  nobles,  the  most  conspicuous  were  the  Lord  Treasurer 
Rochester,  the  Lord  Keeper  Guildford,  the  Lord  Chief  Justi'  •: 
Jeffreys,  the  Lord  Godolphin,  and  the  Lord  Churchill,  who, 
after  his  return  from  Versailles,  had  been  made  a  baron  of 
England. 

The  peers  early  took  into  consideration  the  case  of  fo-ir 
members  of  their  body  who  had  been  impeached  in  the  late 
reign,  but  had  never  been  brought  to  trial,  and  had,  after  a 
long  confinement,  been  admitted  to  bail  by  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench.  Three  of  the  peers  who  were  thus  under  recogni- 
zances  were  Roman  Catholics.  The  fourth  was  a  Protest?,  nt 
of  great  note  and  influence,  the  Earl  of  Danby.  Since  he 
had  fallen  from  power  and  had  been  accused  of  treason  by 
the  Commons,  four  parliaments  had  been  dissolved  ;  but  ho 
had  been  neither  acquitted  nor  condemned.  In  1679  the 
Lords  had  considered,  with  reference  to  his  situation,  the 
question,  whether  an  impeachment  was  or  was  not  terminated 
by  a  dissolution.  They  had  resolved,  after  long  debate  and 
full  examination  of  precedents,  that  the  impeachment  was  still 
pending.  That  resolution  they  now  rescinded.  A  few  Whig 
nobles  protested  against  this  step,  but  to  little  purpose.  The 
Commons  silently  acquiesced  in  the  decision  of  the  Upper 
House.  Danby  again  took  his  seat  among  his  peers,  and  bo 
came  an  active  and  powerful  member  of  the  Tory  party.f 

The  constitutional  question  on  which  the  Lords  thus,  in  the 
short  space  of  six  years,  pronounced  two  diametrically  opposite 
decisions,  slept  during  more  than  a  century,  and  was  at  length 

*  Life  of  Dudley  North,  176;  Loiudale's  Memoirs;  Van  Cittcrs 
June  £f ,  1885. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  March  1,  1689. 
J  Lords'  Journals,  March  13,  19,  1679,  May  22,  1685, 
VOL.  i.  35 


410  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

revived  by  the  disso  ution  which  took  place  during  the  long 
trial  of  Warren  Hastings.  It  was  then  necessary  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  rule  laid  down  in  1679,  or  the  opposite  rule 
laid  down  in  1685,  was  to  be  accounted  the  law  of  the  land. 
The  point  was  long  debated  in  both  Houses ;  and  the  best 
legal  and  parliamentary  abilities  which  an  age  preeminently 
fertile  both  in  legal  and  in  parliamentary  ability  could  supply 
were  employed  in  the  discussion.  The  lawyers  were  not  un- 
equally divided.  Thurlow,  Kenyon,  Scott,  and  Erskine,  main- 
tained that  the  dissolution  had  put  an  end  to  the  impeachment. 
The  contrary  doctrine  was  held  by  Mansfield,  Camden,  Lough- 
borough,  and  Grant.  But  among  those  statesmen  who  grounded 
their  arguments,  not  on  precedents  and  technical  analogies, 
but  on  deep  and  broad  constitutional  principles,  there  was  little 
difference  of  opinion.  Pitt  and  Grenville,  as  well  as  Burke 
and  Fox,  held  that  the  impeachment  was  still  pending.  Both 
Houses  by  great  majorities  set  aside  the  decision  of  1685,  and 
pronounced  the  decision  of  1679  to  be  in  conformity  with  the 
law  of  parliament. 

Of  the  national  crimes  which  had  been  committed  during 
the  panic  excited  by  the  fictions  of  Gates,  the  most  signal  had 
been  the  judicial  murder  of  Stafford.  The  sentence  of  that 
unhappy  nobleman  was  now  regarded  by  all  impartial  persons 
as  unjust.  The  principal  witness  for  the  prosecution  had  been 
convicted  of  a  series  of  foul  perjuries.  It  was  the  duty  of 
the  legislature,  under  such  circumstances,  to  do  justice  to  the 
memory  of  a  guiltless  sufferer,  and  to  efface  an  unmerited 
stain  from  a  name  long  illustrious  in  our  annals.  A  bill  for 
reversing  the  attainder  of  Stafford  was  passed  by  the  Upper 
House,  in  spite  of  the  murmurs  of  a  few  peers  who  were 
unwilling  to  admit  that  they  had  shed  innocent  blood.  The 
Commons  read  the  bill  twice  without  a  division,  and  ordered 
it  to  be  committed.  But,  on  the  day  appointed  for  the  com- 
mittee, arrived  news  that  a  formidable  rebellion  had  broken 
out  in  the  west  of  England.  It  was  consequently  necessary 
to  postpone  much  important  business.  The  reparation  due  to 
the  memory  of  Stafford  was  deferred,  as  it  was  supposed,  only 
for  a  short  time.  But  the  misgovernment  of  James  in  a  few 
months  completely  turned  the  tide  of  public  feeling.  During 
several  generations  the  Roman  Catholics  were  in  no  condition 
to  demand  reparation  for  injustice,  and  accounted  themselves 
happy  if  they  were  permitted  to  live  unmolested  in  obscurity 
and  silence.  At  length,  in  the  reign  of  King  George  the 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  411 

Fourth,  more  than  a  hundred  and  forty  years "after  the  day  on 
which  the  blood  of  Stafford  was  shed  on  Tower  Hill,  the  tardy 
expiation  was  accomplished.  A  law  annulling  the  attainder 
and  restoring  the  injured  family  to  -its  ancient  dignities  was 
presented  to  parliament  by  the  ministers  of  the  crown,  was 
eagerly  welcomed  by  public  men  of  all  parties,  and  was  passed 
without  one  dissentient  voice.* 

It  is  now  necessary  that  I  should  trace  the  origin  and  prog- 
ress of  that  rebellion  by  which  the  deliberations  of  the  Houses 
were  suddenly  interrupted. 

•  St»t  4  Geo.  IV.  c.  46. 


412  HISTO&T    OF    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER    V. 

TOWARDS  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second 
some  Whigs  who  had  been  deeply  implicated  in  the  plot  so 
fatal  to  their  party,  and  who  knew  themselves  to  be  marked 
out  for  destruction,  had  sought  an  asylum  in  the  Low 
Countries. 

These  refugees  were  in  general  men  of  fiery  tempei  and 
weak  judgment.  They  were  also  under  the  influence  of  that 
peculiar  illusion  which  seems  to  belong  to  their  situation.  A 
politician  driven  into  banishment  by  a  hostile  faction  generally 
sees  the  society  which  he  has  quitted  through  a  false  medium. 
Every  object  is  distorted  and  discolored  by  his  regrets,  his 
longings,  and  his  resentments.  Every  little  discontent  appears 
to  him  to  portend  a  revolution.  Every  riot  is  a  rebellion  He 
cannot  be  convinced  that  his  country  does  not  pine  for  him  as 
much  as1  he  pines  for  his  country.  He  imagines  that  all  his 
old  associates,  who  still  dwell  at  their  homes  and  enjoy  their 
estates,  are  tormented  by  the  same  feelings  which  make  life  a 
burden  to  himself.  The  longer  his  expatriation,  the  greater 
does  this  hallucination  become.  The  lapse  of  time  which 
cools  the  ardor  of  the  friends  whom  he  has  left  behind  inflames 
his.  Every  month  his  impatience  to  revisit  his  native  land 
increases  ;  and  every  month  his  native  land  remembers  and 
misses  him  less.  This  delusion  becomes  almost  a  madness 
when  many  exiles  who  suffer  in  the  same  cause  herd  together 
on  a  foreign  shore.  Their  chief  employment  is  to  talk  of 
what  they  once  were,  and  of  what  they  may  yet  be,  to  goad 
each  other  into  animosity  against  the  common  enemy,  to  feed 
each  other  with  extravagant  hopes  of  victory  and  revenge. 
Thus  they  become  ripe  for  enterprises  which  would  at  once 
be  pronounced  hopeless  by  any  man  whose  passions  had  not 
deprived  him  of  the  power  of  calculating  chances. 

In  this  mood  were  many  of  the  outlaws  who  had  assembled 
on  the  Continent.  The  correspondence  which  they  kept  up 
with  England  was,  for  the  most  part,  such  as  tended  to  excite 
their  feelings  and  to  mislead  their  judgment.  Their  informa* 
tion  concerning  the  temper  of  the  public  mind  was  _chieflv 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  413 

derived  from  the  worst  members  of  the  Whig  party,  from  men 
who  were  plotters  and  libellers  by  profession,  who  were  pur- 
sued by  the  officers  of  justice,  who  were  forced  to  skulk  in 
disguise  through  back  streets,  and  who  sometimes  lay  hid  for 
weeks  together  in  cocklofts  and  cellars.  The  statesmen  who 
had  been  the  ornaments  of  the  country  party,  the  statesmen 
who  afterwards  guided  the  counsels  of  the  Convention,  would 
have  given  advice  very  different  from  that  which  was  given  by 
such  men  as  John  Wildman  and  Henry  Danvers. 

Wildman  had  served  forty  years  before  in  the  parliamentary 
army,  but  had  been  more  distinguished  there  as  an  agitator 
than  as  a  soldier,  and  had  early  quitted  the  profession  of  arms 
for  pursuits  better  suited  to  his  temper.  His  hatred  of  monar- 
chy had  induced  him  to  engage  in  a  long  series  of  conspiracies, 
first  against  the  Protector,  and  then  against  the  Stuarts.  But 
with  Wildman's  fanaticism  was  joined  a  tender  care  for  his 
own  safety.  He  had  a  wonderful  skill  in  grazing  the  edge 
of  treason.  No  man  understood  better  how  to  instigate  others 
to  desperate  enterprises  by  words  which,  when  repeated  to  a 
jury,  might  seem  innocent,  or,  at  worst,  ambiguous.  Such 
was  his  cunning  that,  though  always  plotting,  though  ahvays 
known  to  be  plotting,  and  though  long  malignantly  watched  by 
a  vindictive  government,  he  eluded  every  danger,  and  died  in 
his  bed,  after  having  seen  two  generations  of  his  accomplices 
die  on  the  gallows.*  Danvers  was  a  man  of  the  same  class, 
hot-headed,  but  faint-hearted,  constantly  tfrged  to  the  brink  of 
danger  by  enthusiasm,  and  constantly  stopped  on  that  brink 
by  cowardice.  He  had  considerable  influence  among  a  por- 
tion of  the  Baptists,  had  written  largely  in  defence  of  their 
peculiar  opinions,  and  had  drawn  down  on  himself  the  severe 
censure  of  the  most  respectable  Puritans  by  attempting  to 
palliate  the  crimes  of  Matthias  and  John  of  Leyden.  It  is 
probable  that,  had  he  possessed  a  little  courage,  he  would 
have  trode  in  the  footsteps  of  the  wretches  whom  he  defended. 
He  was  at  this  time,  concealing  himself  from  the  officers  of 
justice ;  for  warrants  were  out  against  him  on  account  of  a 
grossly  calumnious  paper  of  which  the  government  had  dis- 
covered him  to  be  the  author.t 


*  Clarendon's  History  of  the  Rebellion,  book.  xiv.  •  Burnet's  Own 
Times,  i.  546,  625 ;  Wade's  and  Ireton's  Narratives,  Lansdowne  MS. 
1152 ;  West's  information  in  the  Appendix  to  Spraf  s  True  Account. 

t  London  Gazette,  Jan.  4,  lG8f ;  Ferguson  MS.  in  JSachard's  Hi»- 
35* 


414  HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  what  kind  of  intelligence  and  counsel 
men,  such  as  have  been  described,  were  likely  to  send  to 
the  outlaws  in  the  Netherlands.  Of  the  general  character 
of  those  outlaws  an  estimate  may  be  formed  from  a  few 
samples. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  among  them  was  John  Ayloffe, 
a  lawyer  connected  by  affinity  with  the  Hydes,  and,  through 
the  Hydes,  with  James.  Ayloffe  had  early  made  himself 
remarkable  by  offering  a  whimsical  insult  to  the  government. 
At  a  time  when  the  ascendency  of  the  Court  of  Versailles  had 
excited  general  uneasiness,  he  had  contrived  to  put  a  wooden 
shoe,  the  established  type,  among  the  English,  of  French 
tyranny,  into  the  chair  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  had 
subsequently  been  concerned  in  the  Whig  Plot ;  but  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  a  party  to  the  design  of  assas- 
sinating the  royal  brothers.  He  was  a  man  of  parts  and 
courage ;  but  his  moral  character  did  not  stand  high.  The 
Puritan  divines  whispered  that  he  was  a  careless  Gallio  or 
something  worse,  and  that,  whatever  zeal  he  might  profess  for 
civil  liberty,  the  saints  would  do  well  to  avoid  all  connection 
with  him.* 

Nathaniel  Wade  was,  like  Ayloffe,  a  lawyer.  He  had  long 
resided  at  Bristol,  and  had  been  celebrated  in  his  own  neigh- 
borhood as  a  vehement  republican.  At  one  time  he  had 
formed  a  project  of  emigrating  to  New  Jersey,,  where  he  ex- 
pected to  find  institutions  better  suited  to  his  taste  than  those 
of  England.  His  activity  in  electioneering  had  introduced 
him  to  the  notice  of  some  Whig  nobles.  They  had  employed 
him  professionally,  and  had,  at  length,  admitted  him  to  their 
most  secret  counsels.  He  had  been  deeply  concerned  in  the 
scheme  of  insurrection,  and  had  undertaken  to  head  a  rising 
in  his  own  city.  He  had  also  been  privy  to  the  more  odious 
plot  against  the  lives  of  Charles  and  James.  But  he  always 
declared  that,  though  privy  to  it,  he  liad  abhorred  it,  and  had 

tory,  UL-764;  Grey's  Narrative;  Sprat's  True  Account;  Danvers's 
Treatise  on  Baptism;  Danvers's  Innocency  and  Truth  vindicated; 
Crosby's  History  of  the  English  Baptists. 

*  Sprat's  True  Account ;  Buract,  i.  634 ;  Wade's  Confession,  Harl. 
MS.  6845. 

Lord  Howard  of  Escrick  accused  Ayloffe  of  proposing  to  assas- 
itnate  the  Duke  of  York ;  but  Lord  Howard  was  an  abject  liar ;  and 
this  story  was  not  part  of  his  original  confession,  but  was  added  after- 
wards by  way  of  supplement,  and  therefore  deserves  no  credit  what- 
«rer. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  41d 

attempted  to  dissuade  his  associates  from  carrying  theii  design 
into  effect.  For  a  man  bred  to  civil  pursuits,  Wade  seems  to 
have  had,  in  an  unusual  degree,  that  sort  of  ability  and  that 
sort  of  nerve  which  make  a  good  soldier.  Unhappily  his 
principles  and  his  courage  proved  to  be  not  of  sufficient  force 
to  support  him  when  the  fight  was  over,  and  when,  in  prison, 
he  had  to  choose  between  death  and  infamy.*. 

Another  fugitive  was  Richard  Goodenough,  who  had  for- 
merly been  Under  Sheriff  of  London.  On  this  man  his  party 
had  long  relied  for  services  of  no  honorable  kind,  and  espe- 
cially for  the  selection  of  jurymen  not  likely  to  be  troubled 
with  scruples  in  political  cases.  He  had  been  deeply  con- 
cerned in  tfiose  dark  and  atrocious  parts  of  the  Whig  Plot 
which  had  been  carefully  concealed  from  the  most  respectable 
Whigs.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  plead,  in  extenuation  of  his 
guilt,  that  he  was  misled  by  inordinate  zeal  for  the  public 
good.  For  it  will  be  seen  that,  after  having  disgraced  a  noble 
cause  by  his  crimes,  he  betrayed  it  in  order  to  escape  from 
his  well-merited  punishment.t 

Very  different  was  the  character  of  Richard  Rumbold.  He 
had  held  a  commission  in  Cromwell's  own  regiment,  had 
guarded  the  scaffold  before  the  Banqueting  House  on  the  day 
of  the  great  execution,  had  fought  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester, 
and  had  always  shown  in  the  highest  degree  the  qualities 
which  distinguished  the  invincible  army  in  which  he  served, 
courage  of  the  truest  temper,  fiery  enthusiasm,  both  political 
and  religious,  and  with  that  enthusiasm  all  the  power  of  self- 
government  which  is  characteristic  of  men  trained  in  well- 
disciplined  camps  to  command  and  to  obey.  When  the  repub- 
lican troops  were  disbanded,  Rumbold  became  a  maltster,  and 
carried  on  his  trade  near  Hoddesdon,  in  that  building  from 
which  the  Rye  House  Plot  derives  its  name.  It  had  been  sug- 
gested, though  not  absolutely  determined,  in  the  conferences 
of  the  most  violent  and  unscrupulous  of  the  malcontents,  that 
armed  men  should  be  stationed  in  the  Rye  House  to  attack  the 
guards  who  were  to  escort  Charles  and  James  from  New- 
market to  London.  In  these  conferences  Rumbold  had  borne 
a  part  from  which  he  would  have  shrunk  with  horror  if  his 


*  Wade's  Confession,  Harl.  MS.  6845  ;  Lansdownc  MS.  1152 ;  Hol- 
•oway's  narrative  in  the  Appendix  to  Sprat's  True  Account.  Wade 
iwned  that  Holloway  had  told  nothing  but  truth. 

t  Sprat's  True  Account  and  Appendix,  passim. 


416  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

clear  understanding  had  not  been  overclouded,  and  his  manly 
heart  corrupted,  .by  party  spirit.* 

Far  superior  in  station  to  those  exiles  who  have  hitherto  been 
named  was  Ford  Grey,  Lord  Grey  of  Wark.  He  had  been  a 
zealous  Exclusionist,  had  concurred  in  the  design  of  insurrec- 
tion, and  had  been  committed  to  the  Tower,  but  had  succeeded 
in  making  his  keepers  drunk,  and  in  effecting  his  escape  to 
the  Continent.  His  abilities  were  respectable,  and  his  man- 
ners pleasing ;  but  his  life  had  been  sullied  by  a  great  domes- 
tic crime.  His  wife  was  a  daughter  of  the  noble  house  of 
Berkeley.  Her  sister,  the  Lady  Henrietta  Berkeley,  was 
allowed  to  associate  and  correspond  with  him  as  with  a  brother 
by  blood.  A  fatal  attachment  sprang  up.  The  high  spirit 
and  strong  passions  of  Lady  Henrietta  broke  through  all  re- 
straints of  virtue  and  decorum.  A  scandalous  elopement  dis- 
closed to  the  whole  kingdom  the  shame  of  two  illustrious 
families.  Grey  and  some  of  the  agents  who  had  served  him 
in  his  amour  were  brought  to  trial  on  a  charge  of  conspiracy. 
A  scene  unparalleled  in  our  legal  history  was  exhibited  in  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench.  The  seducer  appeared  with  dauntless 
front,  accompanied  by  his  paramour.  Nor  did  the  great  Whig 
lords  flinch  from  their  friend's  side  even  in  that  extremity. 
Those  whom  he  had  wronged  stood  over  against  him,  and 
were  moved  to  transports  of  rage  by  the  sight  of  him.  The 
old  Earl  of  Berkeley  poured  forth  reproaches  and  curses  on 
the  wretched  Henrietta.  The  countess  gave  evidence,  broken 
by  many  sobs,  and  at  length  fell  down  in  a  swoon.  The  jury 
found  a  verdict  of  guilty.  When  the  court  rose,  Lord  Berke- 
ley called  on  all  his  friends  to  help  him  to  seize  his  daughter. 
The  partisans  of  Grey  rallied  round  her.  Swords  were  drawn 
on  both  sides  ;  a  skirmish  took  place  in  Westminster  Hall ; 
rind  it  was  with  difficulty  that  the  judges  and  tipstaves  parted 
the  combatants.  In  our  time  such  a  trial  would  be  fatal  to  the 
character  of  a  public  man ;  but,  in  that  age,  the  standard  of 
morality  among  the  great  was  so  low,  and  party  spirit  was  so 
violent,  that  Grey  still  continued  to  have  considerable  influ- 
ence, though  the  Puritans,  who  formed  a  strong  section  of  the 
Whig  party,  looked  somewhat  coldly  on  him.t 

*  Sprat's  True  Account  and  Appendix ;  Proceedings  against  Rum- 
l.i,ld  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials ;  Burnet's  Own  Times,  i.  633 ; 
Appendix  to  Fox's  History,  No.  IV. 

t  Grey's  Narrative ;  his  trial  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trial* ; 
i'l-rat's  Truo  Account. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLUfU.  417 

One  part  of  the  character,  or  rather,  it  may  be,  of  the  for. 
tune,  of  Grey  deserves  notice.  It  was  admitted  that  every 
where,  except  on  the  field  of  battle,  he  showed  a  high  degree 
of  courage.  More  than  once,  in  embarrassing  circumstances, 
when  his  life  and  liberty  were  at  stake,  the  dignity  of  his  de- 
portment and  his  perfect  command  of  all  his  faculties  extorted 
praise  from  those  who  neither  loved  nor  esteemed  him.  But 
as  a  soldier,  he  incurred,  less  perhaps  by  his  fault  than 
by  mischance,  the  degrading  imputation  of  personal  cow- 
ardice. 

In  this  respect  he  differed  widely  from  his  friend  the  Duke 
of  Monmouth.  Ardent  and  intrepid  on  the  field  of  battle, 
Monmouth  was  every  where  else  effeminate  and  irresolute. 
The  accident  of  his  birth,  his  personal  courage,  and  his  super- 
ficial graces,  had  placed  him  in  a  post  for  which  he  was  alto- 
gether unfitted.  After  witnessing  the  ruin  of  the  party  of 
which  he  had  been  the  nominal  head,  he  had  retired  to  Hol- 
land. The  Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange  had  now  ceased  to 
regard  him  as  a  rival.  They  received  him  most  hospitably  ; 
for  they  hoped  that,  by  treating  him  with  kindness,  they  should 
establish  a  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  his  father.  They  knew 
that  paternal  affection  was 'not  yet  wearied  out,  that  letters  and 
supplies  of  money  still  came  secretly  from  Whitehall  to  Mon- 
mouth's  retreat,  and  that  Charles  frowned  on  those  who  sought 
to  pay  their  court  by  speaking  ill  of  his  banished  son.  The 
duke  had  been  encouraged  to  expect  that,  in  a  very  short  time, 
if  he  gave  no  new  cause  of  displeasure,  he  would  be  recalled 
to  his  native  land,  and  restored  to  all  his  high  honors  and 
commands.  Animated  by  such  expectations,  he  had  been  the 
life  of  the  Hague  during  the  late  winter.  He  had  been  the 
most  conspicuous  figure  at  a  succession  of  balls  in  that  splen- 
did Orange  Hall,  which  blazes  on  every  side  with  the  most 
ostentatious  coloring  of  Jordaens  and  Hondthorst.*  He  had 
introduced  the  English  country  dance  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
Dutch  ladies,  and  had  in  his  turn  learned  from  them  to  skate 
on  the  canals.  The  princess  had  accompanied  him  in  his 
expeditions  on  the  ice ;  and  the  figure  which  she  made  there, 
poised  on  one  leg,  and  clad  in  petticoats  shorter  than  are  gen- 
erally worn  by  ladies  so  strictly  decorous,  had  caused  some 
wonder  and  mirth  to  the  foreign  ministers.  The  sullen  gravity 

*  In  the  Pepysian  Collection  is  a  print  representing  one  of  tho 
calls  which  about  this  tipie  William  and  Mary  gave  in  the  Oranje  Zwu 

35* 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

*  tiich  Had  been  characteristic  of  the  Stadtholder's  cour* 
seemed  to  have  vanished  before  the  influence  of  the  fascinat- 
ing Englishman.  Even  the  stern  and  pensive  William  relaxed 
into  good  humor  when  his  brilliant  guest  appeared.* 

Monmouth  meanwhile  carefully  avoided  all  that  could  give 
offence  in  the  quarter  to  which  he  looked  for  protection.  He 
yaw  little  of  any  Whigs,  and  nothing  of  those  violent  men 
who  had  been  concerned  in  the  worst  part  of  the  Whig  Plot. 
He  was  therefore  loudly  accused,  by  his  old  associates,  of 
fickleness  and  ingratitude.t 

By  none  of  the  exiles  was  this  accusation  urged  with  more 
vehemence  and  bitterness  than  by  Robert  Ferguson,  the  Judas 
of  Dryden's  great  satire.  Ferguson  was  by  birth  a  Scot ; 
but  England  had  long  been  his  residence.  At  the  time  of 
the  Restoration,  indeed,  he  had  held  a  living  in  Kent.  He 
had  been  bred  a  Presbyterian ;  but  the  Presbyterians  had 
castliim  out,  and  he  had  become  an  Independent.  He  had 
been  master  of  an  academy  which  the  dissenters  had  set  up 
at  Islington  as  a  rival  to  Westminster  School  and  the  Charter 
House ;  and  he  had  preached  to  large  congregations  at  a 
meeting  in  Moorfields.  He  had  also  published  some  theologi- 
cal treatises,  which  may  still  be  found  in  the  dusty  recesses  of  a 
few  old  libraries ;  but,  though  texts  of  Scripture  were  always  on 
his  lips,  those  who  had  pecuniary  transactions  with  him  soon 
found  him  to  be  a  mere  swindler. 

At  length  he  turned  his  attention  almost  entirely  from 
theology  to  the  worst  part  of  politics.  He  belonged  to  the 
class  whose  office  it  is  to  render  in  troubled  times  to  exas- 
perated parties  those  services  from  which  honest  men  shrink 
in  disgust  and  prudent  men  in  fear,  the  class  of  fanatical 
knaves.  Violent,  malignant,  regardless  of  truth,  insensible 
to  shame,  insatiable  of  notoriety,  delighting  in  intrigue,  in 
tumult,  in  mischief  for  its  own  sake,  he  toiled  during  many 
years  in  the  darkest  mines  of  faction.  He  lived  among 
libellers  and  false  witnesses.  He  was  the  keeper  of  a  secret 
purse  from  which  agents  too  vile  to  be  acknowledged  received 
liire,  and  the  director  of  a  secret  press  whence  pamphlets, 
bearing  no  name,  were  daily  issued.  He  boasted  that  he 

*  Avaux  Neg.  Jan.  25,  1685.  Letter  from  James  to  the  Princess 
of  Orange'  dated  Jan.  168$,  among  Birche's  extracts  in  the  British 
Museum. 

t  Grey's  Narrative ;  Wade's  Confession,  Lansdewne  MS.  1 152, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  419 

/ 

contrived  to  scatter  lampoons  about  the  terrace  of  Windsor, 
and  even  to  lay  them  under  the  royal  pillow.  In  this  way 
of  life  he  was  put  to  many  shifts,  was  forced  to  assume  many 
names,  and  at  one  time  had  four  different  lodgings  in  different 
corners  of  London.  He  was  deeply  engaged  in  the  Rye 
House  Plot.  There  is,  indeed,  reason  to  believe  that  he  was 
the  original  author  of  those  sanguinary  schemes  which  brought 
so  much  discredit  on  the  whole  Whig  party.  -When  the  con- 
spiracy*  was  detected  and  his  associates  were  in  dismay,  he 
bade  them  farewell  with  a  laugh,  and  told  them  that  they 
were  novices,  that  he  had  been  used  to  flight,  concealment, 
and  disguise,  and  that  he  should  never  leave  off  plotting 
while  he  lived.  He  escaped  to  the  Continent.  But  it  seemed 
that  even  on  the  Continent  he  was  not  secure.  The  English 
envoys  at  foreign  courts  were  directed  to  be  on  the  watch  for 
him.  The  French  government  offered  a  reward  of  five 
hundred  pistoles  to  any  who  would  seize  him.  Nor  was  it 
easy  for  him  to  escape  notice  ;  for  his  broad  Scotch  accent, 
his  tall  and  lean  figure,  his  lantern  jaws,  the  gleam  of  his 
sharp  eyes  which  were  always  overhung  by  his  wig,  his 
cheeks  inflamed  by  an  eruption,  his  shoulders  deformed  by  a 
stoop,  and  his  gait  distinguished  from  that  of  other  men  by  a 
peculiar  shuffle,  made  him  remarkable  wherever  he  appeared. 
But,  though  he  was,  as  it  seemed,  pursued  with  peculiar 
animosity,  it  was  whispered  that  this  animosity  was  sim- 
ulated, and  that  the  officers  of  justice  had  secret  orders  not 
to  see  him.  That  he  was  really  a  bitter  malcontent  can 
scarcely  be  doubted.  But  there  is  strong  reason  to  believe 
that  he  provided  for  his  own  safety  by  pretending  at  White- 
hall to  be  a  spy  on  the  Whigs,  and  by  furnishing  the  govern- 
ment with  just  so  much  information  as  sufficed  to  keep  up  his 
credit.  This  hypothesis  furnishes  a  simple  explanation  of 
what  seemed  to  his  associates  to  be  his  unnatural  recklessness 
and  audacity.  Being  himself  out  of  danger,  he  always  gave 
his  vote  for  the  most  violent  and  perilous  course,  and  sneered 
very  complacently  at  the  pusillanimity  of  men  who,  not 
having  taken  the  infamous  precautions  on  which  he  relied, 
«vere  disposed  to  think  twice  before  they  placed  life,  and 
objects  dearer  than  life,  on  a  single  hazard.* 

*  Burnct,  i.  542 ;  Wood,  Ath.  Ox.  under  the  name  of  Owen ; 
Absalom  and  Achitophel,  part  ii. ;  Eachard,  iii.  682,  697 ;  Sprat's 
True  Account,  passim;  Nonconformist's  Memorial;  North's  Ex- 
•men,  399. 


420  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

As  soon  as  he  was  in  the  Low  Countries  he  began  to  form 
new  projects  against  the  English  government,  and  found 
among  his  fellow-emigrants  men  ready  to  listen  to  his  evil 
counsels.  Monmouth,  however,  stood  obstinately  aloof  ;  and 
without  the  help  of  Monmouth's  immense  popularity,  it  was 
impossible  to  effect  any  thing.  Yet  such  was  the  impatience 
and  rashness  of  the  exiles  that  they  tried  to  find  another 
leader.  They  sent  an  embassy  to  a  solitary  retreat  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Leman,  where  Edmund  Ludlow,  onc«  con- 
spicuous among  the  chiefs  of  the  parliamentary  army  and 
among  the  members  of  the  high  court  of  justice,  had,  during 
many  years,  hidden  himself  from  the  vengeance  of  the 
restored  Stuarts.  The  stern  old  regicide,  however,  refused 
to  quit  his  hermitage.  His  work,  he  said,  was  done.  If 
England  was  still  to  be  saved,  she  must  be  saved  by  youngei 


The  unexpected  demise  of  the  crown  changed  the  whole 
aspect  of  affairs.  Any  hope  which  the  proscribed  Whigs 
might  have  cherished  of  returning  peaceably  to  their  native 
land  was  extinguished  by  the  death  of  a  careless  and  good 
natured  prince,  and  by  the  accession  of  a  prince  obstinate  in 
all  things,  and  especially  obstinate  in  revenge.  Ferguson 
was  in  his  element.  Destitute  of  the  talents  both  of  a  writer 
and  of  a  statesman,  he  had  in  a  high  degree  the  unenviable 
qualifications  of  a  tempter  ;  and  now,  with  the  malevolent 
activity  and  dexterity  of  an  evil  spirit,  he  ran  from  outlaw  to 
outlaw,  chattered  in  every  ear,  and  stirred  up  in  every  bosom 
savage  animosities  and  wild  desires. 

He  no  longer  despaired  of  being  able  to  seduce  Monmouth. 
The  situation  of  that  unhappy  young  man  was  completely 
changed.  While  he  was  dancing  and  skating  at  the  Hague, 
and  expecting  every  day  a  summons  to  London,  he  was 
overwhelmed  with  misery  by  the  tidings  of  his  father's  death 
and  of  his  uncle's  accession.  During  the  night  which  followed 
the  arrival  of  the  news,  those  who  lodged  near  him  could 
distinctly  hear  his  sobs  and  his  piercing  cries.  He  quitted  the 
Hague  on  the  next  day,  having  solemnly  pledged  his  word, 
both  to  the  Prince  and  to  the  Princess  of  Orange,  not  to  attempt 
ftny  thing  against  the  government  of  England,  and  having 

*  Wade's  Confession,  Hurl.  MS.  6845. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  421 

been  supplied  by  them  with  money  to  meet  immediate 
demands.* 

The  prospect  which  lay  before  Monmouth  was  not  a  bright 
one.  There  was  no  probability  that  he  would  be  recalled 
from  banishment.  On  the  Continent  his  life  could  no  longer 
be  passed  amidst  the  splendor  and  festivity  of  a  court.  His 
cousins  at  the  Hague  seem  to  have  really  regarded  him  with 
kindness  ;  but  they  could  no  longer  countenance  him  openly 
without  serious  risk  of  producing  a  rupture  between  England 
ami  Holland.  William  offered  a  .kind  and  judicious  sug- 
gestion. The  war  which  was  then  raging  in  Hungary, 
between  the  Emperor  and  the  Turks,  was  watched  by  all 
Europe  with  interest  almost  as  great  as  that  which  the  Cru- 
sades had  excited  five  hundred  years  earlier.  Many  gallant 
gentlemen,  both  Protestant  and  Catholic,  were  fighting  as 
volunteers  in  the  common  cause  of  Christendom.  The 
prince  advised  Monmouth  to  repair  to  the  imperial  camp, 
and  assured  him  that,  if  he  would  do  so,  he  should  not  want 
the  means  of  making  an  appearance  befitting  an  English 
nobleman.t  This  counsel  was  excellent ;  but  the  duke  could 
not  make  up  his  mind.  He  retired  to  Brussels  accompanied 
by  Henrietta  Wentworth,  Baroness  Wentworth  of  Nettlestede, 
a  damsel  of  high  rank  and  ample  fortune,  who  loved  him 
passionately,  who  had  sacrificed  for  his  sake  her  maiden 
honor  and  the  hope  of  a  splendid  alliance,  who  _had  followed 
him  into  exile,  and  whom  he  believed  to  be  his  wife  in  the 
sight  of  Heaven.  Under  the  soothing  influence  of  female 
friendship,  his  lacerated  mind  healed  fast.  He  seemed  to 
have  found  happiness  in  obscurity  and  repose,  and  to  have 
forgotten  that  he  had  been  the  ornament  of  a  splendid  court 
and  the  head  of  a  great  party,  that  he  had  commanded 
drmies,  and  that  he  had  aspired  to  a  throne. 

But  he  was  not  suffered  to  remain  quiet.  Ferguson  em- 
ployed all  his  powers  of  temptation.  Grey,  who  knew  not 
where  to  turn  for  a  pistole,  and  was  ready  for  any  under- 
Baking  however  desperate,  lent  his  aid.  No  art  was  spared 
«ehich  could  draw  Monmouth  from  retreat.  To  the  first 


*  Avaux  Ncg.  Feb.  20,  22,  1685  ;  Monmouth' s  letter  to  James  from 
Ringwood. 

T  The  History  of  King  William  the  Third,  2d  edition,  1703,  voL  i. 
160. 

VOL.  i.  36 


422  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

invitations  whi,  h  he  received  from  his  old*  associates  ho 
returned  unfavorable  answers.  He  pronounced  the  diffi 
culties  of  a  descent  on  England  insuperable,  protested  that 
he  was  sick  of  public  life,  and  begged  to  be  left  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  newly-found  happiness.  But  he  was  little  in  the 
habit  of  resisting  skilful  and  urgent  importunity.  It  is  said, 
too,  that  he  was  induced  to  quit  his  retirement  by  the  same 
powerful  influence  which  had  made  that  retirement  delightful 
Lady  Wentworth  wished  to  see  him  a  king.  Her  rents,  hei 
diamonds,  her  credit,  were  put  at  his  disposal.  Monmouthfs 
judgment  was  not  convinced  ;  but  he  had  not  firmness  to  resist 
such  solicitations.* 

By  the  English  exiles  he  was  joyfully  welcomed,  and 
unanimously  acknowledged  as  their  head.  But  there  was 
another  class  of  emigrants  who  were  not  disposed  to  recog- 
nize his  supremacy.  Misgovernment,  such  as  had  never 
been  known  in  the  southern  part  of  our  island,  had  driven 
from  Scotland  to  the  Continent  many  fugitives,  the  intemper- 
ance of  whose  political  and  religious  zeal  was  proportioned 
to  the  oppression  which  they  had  undergone.  These  men 
were  not  willing  to  follow  an  English  leader.  Even  in  desti- 
tution and  exile  they  retained  their  punctilious  national  pride, 
and  would  not  consent  that  their  country  should  be,  in  theii 
persons,  degraded  into  a  province.  They  had  a  captain  of 
their  own,  Archibald,  ninth  Earl  of  Argyle,  who,  as  head  of 
the  great  tribe  of  Campbell,  was  known  among  the  population 
of  the  Highlands  by  the  proud  name  of  Mac  Callum  More. 
His  father,  the  Marquess  of  Argyle,  had  been  the  head  of  the 
Scotch  Covenanters,  had  greatly  contributed  to  the  ruin  of 
Charles  the  First,  and  was  not  thought  by  the  Royalists  to 
have  atoned  for  this  offence  by  consenting  to  bestow  the 
empty  title  of  king,  and  a  state  prison  in  Holyrood,  on  Charles 
the  Second.  After  the  return  of  the  royal  family  the  mar- 
quess was  put  to  death.  His  marquisate  became  extinct ;  but 

*  Webrood's  ^  Memoirs,  App.  xv. ;  Burnet,  i.  630.  Grey  told  a 
somewhat  different  story  ;  but  he  told  it  to  save  his  life.  The  Span- 
ish ambassador  at  the  English  court,  Don  Pedro  de  Ronquillo,  in  9 
letter  to  the  governor  of  the  Low  Countries  written  about  this  time, 
sneers  at  Monmonth  for  living  on  the  bounty  of  a  fond  woman,  and 
hints  a  very  unfounded  suspicion  that  the  duke's  passion  was  alto- 
gether interested.  "Hallandose  hoy  tan  falto  de  medios  que  ha 
menester  trasformarse  en  Amor  con  Miledi  en  vista  de  la  necesidad 
Ae  poder  subsistir."— .  Ronquillo  tD  Grsna,  £  1685, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  423 

his  son  was  permitted  to  inherit  the  ancient  earldom,  and  was 
still  among  the  greatest  of  the  nobles  of  Scotland.  The  earl's 
conduct  during  the  twenty  years  which  followed  the  Restora- 
tion had  been,  as  he  afterwards  thought,  criminally  moderate. 
He  had,  on  some  occasions,  opposed  the  administration  which 
afflicted  his  country ;  but  his  opposition  had  been  languid 
and  cautious.  His  compliances  in  ecclesiastical  matters  had 
given  scandal  to  rigid  Presbyterians ;  and  so  far  had  he  been 
from  showing  any  inclination  to  resistance  that,  when  the 
Covenanters  had  been  persecuted  into  insurrection,  he  had 
brought  into  the  field  a  large  body  of  his  dependants  to  sup- 
port the  government. 

Such  had  been  his  political  course  until  the  Duke  of  York 
came  down  to  Edinburgh  armed  with  the  whole  regal  author- 
ity. The  despotic  viceroy  soon  found  that  he  could  not 
expect  entire  support  from  Argyle.  Since  the  most  powerful 
chief  in  the  kingdom  could  not  be  gained,  it  was  thought 
necessary  that  he  should  be  destroyed.  On  grounds  so  frivo- 
lous that  even  the  spirit  of  party  and  the  spirit  of  chicane 
were  ashamed  of  them,  he  was  brought  to  trial  for  treason, 
convicted,  and  sentenced  to  death.  The  partisans  of  the 
Stuarts  afterwards  asserted  that  it  was  never  meant  to  carry 
this  sentence  into  effect,  and  that  the  only  object  of  the  pros- 
ecution was  to  frighten  him  into  ceding  his  extensive  jurisdic- 
tion in  the  Highlands.  Whether  James  designed,  as  his 
enemies  suspected,  to  commit  murder,  or  only,  as  his  friends 
affirmed,  to  commit  extortion  by  threatening  to  commit  mur- 
der, cannot  now  be  known.  "  I  know  nothing  of  the  Scotch 
law,"  said  Halifax  to  King  Charles,  "  but  this  I  know,  that 
we  should  not  hang  a  dog  here  on  the  grounds  on  which  my 
Lord  Argyle  has  been  sentenced."  * 

Argyle  escaped  in  disguise  to  England,  and  thence  passed 
over  to  Friesland.  In  that  secluded  province  his  father  bad 
bought  a  small  estate,  as  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  family  in 
civil  troubles.  It  was  said,  among  the  Scots,  that  this  purchase 
had  been  made  in  consequence  of  the  predictions  of  a  Celtic 
seer,  to  whom  it  had  been  revealed  that  Mac  Callum  More 
would  one  day  be  driven  forth  from  the  ancient  mansion  of 

*  Proceeding  against  Argyle  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials ; 
Burnet,  i.  521 ;  A  true  and  plain  Account  of  tb<  Discoveries  made  in 
Scotland,  1684  ;  The  Scotch  Mist  cleared ;  Sir  George  Mackenzie's 
Vindication  ;  Lord  FountainhalTs  Chronological  Notes. 


424  HISTORY  or  ENGLAND. 

nis  race  at  Inverary.*  But  it  is  probable  that1  the  politic  mar- 
quess had  been  warned  rather  by  the  signs  of  the  times  than 
by  the  visions  of  any  prophet.  In  Friesland,  Earl  Archibald 
resided  during  some  time  so  quietly  that  it  was  not  generally 
known  whither  he  had  fled.  From  his  retreat  he  carried  on 
a  correspondence  with  his  friends  in  Great  Britain,  was  a 
party  to  the  Whig  conspiracy,  and  concerted  with  the  chiefs 
of  that  conspiracy  a  plan  for  invading  Scotland.!  This  plan 
had  been  dropped  upon  the  detection  of  the  Rye  House  Plot, 
but  became  again  the  subject  of  his  thoughts  after  the  demise 
of  the  crown. 

He  had,  during  his  residence  on  the  Continent,  reflected 
much  more  deeply  on  religious  questions  than  in  the  preced- 
ing years  of  his  life.  In  one  respect  the  effect  of  these 
reflections  on  his  mind  had  been  pernicious.  His  partiality 
for  the  synodical  form  of  church  government  now  amounted 
to  bigotry.  When  he  remembered  how  long  he  had  con- 
formed to  the  established  worship,  he  was  overwhelmed 
with  shame  and  remorse,  and  showed  too  many  signs  of  a 
disposition  to  atone  for  his  defection  by  violence  and  intoler- 
ance. He  had,  however,  in  no  long  time,  an  opportunity  of 
proving  that  the  fear  and  love -of  a  higher  power  had  nerved 
him  for  the  most  formidable  conflicts  by  which  human  nature 
can  be  tried. 

To  his  companions  in  adversity  his  assistance  was  of  the 
highest  moment.  Though  proscribed  and  a  fugitive,  he  was 
still,  in  some  sense,  the  most  powerful  subject  in  the  British 
dominions.  In  wealth,  even  before  his  attainder,  he  was  prob- 
ably inferior,  not  only  to  the  great  English  nobles,  but  to 
some  of  the  opulent  esquires  of  Kent  and  Norfolk.  But  his 
patriarchal  authority,  an  authority  which  no  wealth  could 
give  and  which  no  attainder  could  take  away,  made  him,  as 
a  leader  of  an  insurrection,  truly  formidable.  No  southern 
lord  could  feel  any  confidence  that,  if  he  ventured  to  resist 
the  government,  even  his  own  gamekeepers  and  huntsmen 
would  stand  by  him.  An  Earl  of  Bedford,  an  Earl  of  Devon- 
shire, could  not  engage  to  bring  ten  men  into  the  field.  Mac 
Callum  More,  penniless  and  deprived  of  his  earldom,  might, 
at  any  moment,  raise  a  serious  civil  war.  He  had  only  to 

*  Information  of  Robert  Smitn  in  the  Appendix  to  Sprat's  True 
Account. 

t  True  and  plain  Account  of  the  Discoveries  made  in  Scotland. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  425 

show  himself  on  the  coast  of  Lorn,  and  an  army  would,  in 
in  a  few  days,  gather  round*  him.  The  force  which,  in  favor- 
able circumstances,  he  could  bring  into  the  field,  amounted 
to  five  thousand  fighting  men,  devoted  to  his  service,  accus- 
tomed to  the  use  of  target  and  broadsword,  not  afraid  to  en- 
counter regular  troops  even  in  the  open  plain,  and  perhaps 
superior  to  regular  troops  in  the  qualifications  requisite  for 
the  defence  of  wild  mountain  passes,  hidden  in  mist,  and  torn 
by  headlong  torrents.  What  such  a  force,  well  directed,  could 
effect,  even  against  veteran  regiments  and  skilful  command- 
ers, was  proved,  a  few  years  later,  at  Killiecrankie. 

But,  strong  as  was  the  claim  of  Argyle  to  the  confidence 
of  the  exiled  Scots,  there  was  a  faction  among  them  which 
regarded 'him  with  no  friendly  feeling,  and  which  wished  to 
make  use  of  his  name  and  influence,  without  intrusting  to 
him  any  real  power.  The  chief  of  this  faction  was  a  low- 
land gentleman,  who  had  been  implicated  in  the  Whig  Plot, 
and  had  with  difficulty  eluded  the  vengeance  of  the  «ourt,  Sir 
Patrick  Hume,  of  Polwarth,  in  Berwickshire.  Great  doubt  has 
been  thrown  on  his  integrity,  but  without  sufficient  reason. 
It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  he  injured  his  cause  by 
perverseness  as  much  as  he  could  have  done  by  treachery. 
He  was  a  man  incapable  alike  of  leading  and  of  following, 
conceited,  captious,  and  wrong-headed,  en  endless  talker,  a 
sluggard  in  action,  against  the  enemy,  and  active  only  against 
his  own  allies.  With  Hume  was  closely  connected  another 
Scottish  exile  of  great  note,  who  had  many  of  the  same 
faults,  though  not  in  the  same  degree,  Sir  John  Cochrane, 
second  son  of  the  Earl  of  Dundonald. 

A  far  higher  character  belonged  to  Andrew  Fletcher,  of 
Saltoun,  a  man  distinguished  by  learning  and  eloquence,  dis- 
tinguished also  by  courage,  disinterestedness,  and  public  spirit, 
but  of  an  irritable  and  impracticable  temper.  Like  many 
of  his  most  illustrious  contemporaries,  Milton,  for  example, 
Harrington,  Marvel,  and  Sidney,  Fletcher  had,  from  the  mis- 
government  of  several  successive  princes,  conceived  a  strong 
aversion  to  hereditary  monarchy.  Yet  he  was  no  democrat. 
He  was  the  head  of  an  ancient  Norman  house,  and  was 
croud  of  his  descent.  He  was  a  fine  speaker  and  a  fine 
writer,  and  was  proud  of  his  intellectual  superiority.  Both  in 
his  character  of  gentleman,  and  in  his  character  of  scholar, 
he  looked  down  with  disdain  on  the  common  people,  and  was 
so  little  disposed  to  intrust  them  with  political  power  that  he 
36* 


426  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

thought  them  unfit  r»ven  to  enjoy  personal  freedom.  It  is  a 
curious  circumstance  that  this  man,  the  most  honest,  fearless 
and  uncompromising  republican  of  his  time,  should  have  been 
the  author  of  a  plan  for  reducing  a  large  part  of  the  working 
classes  of  Scotland  to  slavery.  He  bore,  in  truth,  a  lively 
resemblance  to  those  Roman  senators,  who,  while  they  hated 
the  name  of  king,  guarded  the  privileges  of  their  order  with 
inflexible  pride  against  the  encroachments  of  the  multitude, 
and  governed  their  bondmen  and  bondwomen  by  means  of 
the  stocks  and  the  scourge. 

Amsterdam  was  the  place  where  the  leading  emigrants, 
Scotch  and  English,  assembled.  Argyle  repaired  thither 
from  Friesland,  Monmouth  from  Brabant.  It  soon  appeared 
that  the  fugitives  had  scarcely  any  thing  in  common  except 
hatred  of  James  and  impatience  to  return  from  banishment. 
The  Scots  were  jealous  of  the  English,  the  English  of  the 
Scots.  Monmouth's  high  pretensions  were  offensive  to  Argyle, 
who,  proud  of  ancient  nobility  and  of  a  legitimate  descent 
from  kings,  was  by  no  means  inclined  to  do  homage  to  the 
offspring  of  a  vagrant  and  ignoble  love.  But  of  all  ihe  dissen- 
sions by  which  the  little  band  of  outlaws  was  distracted  the 
most  serious  was  that  which  arose  between  Argyle  and  a  por 
tion  of  his  own  followers.  Some  of  the  Scottish  exiles  had, 
in  a  long  course  of  opposition  to  tyranny,  been  excited  into 
a  morbid  state  of  understanding  and  temper,  which  made  the 
most  just  and  necessary  restraint  seem  insupportable  to  them. 
They  knew  that  without  Argyle  they  could  do  nothing.  They 
ought  to  have  known  that,  unless  they  wished  to  run  headlong 
to  ruin,  they  must  either  repose  full  confidence  in  their  leader, 
or  relinquish  all  thoughts  of  military  enterprise.  Experience 
has  fully  proved  that  in  war  every  operation,  from  the  great- 
est to  the  smallest,  ought  to  be  under  the  absolute  direction 
of  one  mind,  and  that  every  subordinate  agent,  in  his  degree, 
ought  to  obey  implicitly,  strenuously,  and  with  the  show  of 
cheerfulness,  orders  which  he  disapproves,  or  of  which  the 
reasons  are  kept  secret  from  him.  Representative  assemblies, 
public  discussions,  and  all  the  other  checks  by  which,  in  civil 
affairs,  rulers  are  restrained  from  abusing  power,  are  out  of 
place  in  a  camp.  Machiavel  justly  imputed  many  of  the  dis- 
asters of  Venice  and  Florence  to  the  jealousy  which  led  those 
republics  to  interfere  with  every  act  of  their  generals.*  The 

*  I)U corsi  sopra  la  prima  Deca  di  Tito  Livio,  lib.  ii.  cap.  33. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  427 

Dutch  practice  of  sending  to  an  army  deputies,  without  whose 
consent  no  great  blow  could  be  struck,  was  almost  equally 
pernicious.  It  is  undoubtedly  by,  no  means  certain  that  a 
captain,  who  has  been  intrusted  with  dictatorial  power  in  the 
hour  of  peril,  will  quietly  surrender  that  power  in  the  hour  of 
triumph ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  many  considerations  which 
ought  to  make  men  hesitate  long  before  they  resolve  to  vindi- 
cate public  liberty  by  the  sword.  But,  if  they  determine  to 
try  the  chance  of  war,  they  will,  if  they  are  wise,  intrust  to 
their  chief  that  plenary  authority  without  which  war  cannot 
be  well  conducted.  It  is  possible  that,  if  they  give  him  that 
authority,  he  may  turn  out  a  Cromwell  or  a  Napoleon.  But  it 
is  almost  certain  that,  if  they  withhold  from  him  that  authori- 
ty, their  enterprises  will  end  like  the  enterprise  of  Argyle. 

Some  of  the  Scottish  emigrants,  heated  with  republican 
enthusiasm,  and  utterly  destitute  of  the  skill  necessary  to  the 
conduct  of  great  affairs,  employed  all  their  industry  and  inge- 
nuity, not  in  collecting  means  for  the  attack  which  they  were 
about  to  make  on  a  formidable  enemy,  but  in  devising  re- 
straints on  their  leader's  power  and  securities  against  his  am- 
bition. The  self-complacent  stupidity  with  which  they  insisted 
on  organizing  an  army  as  if  they  had  been  organizing  a  com- 
monwealth would  be  incredible  if  it  had  not  been  frankly  and 
even  boastfully  recorded  by  one  of  themselves.* 

At  .length  all  differences  were  compromised.  It  was  deter- 
mined that  an  attempt  should  be  forthwith  made  on  the  west- 
ern coast  of  Scotland,  and  that  it  should  be  promptly  followed 
by  a  descent  on  England. 

Argyle  was  to  hold  the  nominal  command  in  Scotland :  but 
he  was  placed  under  the  control  of  a  committee  which  reserved 
to  itself  all  the  most  important  parts  of  the  military  adminis- 
tration. This  committee  was  empowered  to  determine  where 
the  expedition  should  land,  to  appoint  officers,  to  superintend 
the  levying  of  troops,  to  dole  out  provisions  and  ammuni- 
tion. All  that  was  left  to  the  general  was  to  direct  die  evolu- 
tions of  the  army  in  the  field,  and  he  was  forced  to  promise 
that,  even  in  the  field,  except  in  the  case  of  a  surprise,  he 
would  do  nothing  without  the  assent  of  a  council  of  war. 

Monmouth  was  to  command  in  England.  His  soft  mind 
had,  as  usual,  taken  an  impress  from  the  society  which  sur- 
rounded him.  Ambitious  hopes,  which  had  seemed  to  be 

*  See  Sir  Patrick  Hume's  Narrative,  passim. 


428  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

extinguisned,  had  revived  in  his  bosom.  He  remembered  the 
affection  with  which  he  had  been  constantly  greeted  by  the 
common  people  in  town  and  country,  and  expected  that  they 
would  now  rise  by  hundreds  of  thousands  to  welcome  him.  He 
remembered  the  good  will  which  the  soldiers  had  always  borne 
him,  and  flattered  himself  that  they  would  come  over  to  him 
by  regiments.  Encouraging  messages  reached  him  in  quick 
succession  from  London.  He  was  assured  that  the  violence 
and  injustice  with  which  the  elections  had  been  carried  on  had 
driven  the  nation  mad,  that  the  prudence  of  the  leading  Whigs 
had  with  difficulty  prevented  a  sanguinary  outbreak  on  the  day 
of -the  coronation,  and  that  all  the  great  lords  who  had  sup- 
ported the  Exclusion  Bill  were  impatient  to  rally  round  him. 
Wildman,  who  loved  to  talk  treason  in  parables,  sent  to  say 
that  the  Earl  of  Richmond,  just  two  hundred  years  before, 
had  landed  in  England  with  a  handful  of  men,  and  had  a  few 
days  later  been  crowned,  on  the  field  of  Bosworth,  with  the 
diadem  taken  from  the  head  of  Richard.  Danvers  undertook 
to  raise  the  City.  The  duke  was  deceived  into  the  belief  that, 
as  soon  as  he  set  up  his  standard,  Bedfordshire,  Buckingham- 
shire, Hampshire,  Cheshire  would  rise  in  arms.*  He  conse- 
quently became  eager  for  the  enterprise  from  which  a  few 
weeks  before  he  had  shrunk.  His  countrymen  did  not  impose 
on  him  restrictions  so  elaborately  absurd  as  those  which  the 
Scotch  emigrants  had  devised.  All  that  was  required  of  him 
was  to  promise  that  he  would  not  assume  the  regal  title  till  his 
pretensions  had  been  submitted  to  the  judgment  of  a  free 
parliament. 

It  was  determined  that  two  Englishmen,  Ayloffe  and  Rum- 
bold,  should  accompany  Argyle  to  Scotland,  and  that  Fletcher 
should  go  with  Monmouth  to  England.  Fletcher,  from  the 
beginning,  had  augured  ill  of  the  enterprise :  but  his  chival- 
rous spirit  would  not  suffer  him  to  decline  a  risk  which  his 
friends  seemed  eager  to  encounter.  When  Grey  repeated 
with  approbation  what  Wildman  had  said  about  Richmond  and 
Richard,  the  well-read  and  thoughtful  Scot  justly  remarked 
that  there  was  a  great  difference  between  the  fifteenth  and  the 
seventeenth  century.  Richmond  was  assured  of  the  support 
of  barons,  each  of  whom  could  bring  an  army  of  feudal  re- 
tainers into  the  field  ;  and  Richard^  had  not  one  regiment  of 
regular  soHiers. 

•  Grey's  Narrative ;  Wade's  Confession,  Harl.  MS.  6845. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  429 

The  exiles  were  able  to  raise,  partly  from  their  own 
resources  and  partly  from  the  contributions  of  well-wishers  in 
Hollanu,  a  sum  sufficient  for  the  two  expeditions.  Very  little 
was  obtained  from  London.  Six  thousand  pounds  had  been 
expected  thence.  But  instead  of  the  money  came  excuses 
from  Wildman,  which  ought  to  have  opened  the  eyes  of  all  who 
were  not  wilfully  blind.  The  duke  made  up  the  deficiency 
by  pawning  his  own  jewels  and  those  of  Lady  Wentworth. 
Arms,  ammunition,  and  provisions  were  bought,  and  several 
ships  which  lay  at  Amsterdam  were  freighted.* 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  most  illustrious  and  the  mos* 
grossly  injured  man  among  the  British  exiles  stood  far  aloof 
from  these  rash  counsels.  John  Locke  hated  tyranny  and 
persecution  as  a  philosopher ;  but  his  intellect  and  his  tempe 
preserved  him  f/om  the  violence  of  a  partisan.  He  had  livea 
on  confidential  terms  with  Shaftesbury,  and  had  thus  incurred 
the  displeasure  of  the  court.  Locke's  prudence  had,  however, 
been  such  that  it  would  have  been  to  little  purpose  to  bring 
him  even  before  the  corrupt  and  partial  tribunals  of  that  age. 
In  one  point,  however,  he  was  vulnerable.  He  was  a  student 
of  Christ  Church  in  the  University  of  Oxford.  It  was  deter- 
mined to  drive  from  that  celebrated  college  the  greatest  man 
of  whom  it  could  ever  boast.  But  this  was  not  easy.  Locke 
oad,  at  Oxford,  abstained  from  expressing  any  opinion  on  the 
oolitics  of  the  day.  Spies  had  been  set  about  him.  Doctors 
of  divinity  and  masters  of  arts  had  not  been  ashamed  to  per- 
form the  vilest  of  all  offices,  that  of  watching  the  lips  of  a 
companion  in  order  to  report  his  words  to  his  ruin.  The  con- 
versation in  the  hall  had  been  purposely  turned  to  irritating 
topics,  to  the  Exclusion  Bill,  and  to  the  character  of  the  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury,  but  in  vain.  Locke  never  broke  out,  never 
dissembled,  but  maintained  such  steady  silence  and  composure 
as  forced  the  tools  of  power  to  own  with  vexation  that  never 
man  was  so  complete  a  master  of  his  tongue  and  of  his  pas- 
sions. When  it  was  found  that  treachery  could  do  nothing, 
arbitrary  power  was  used.  After  vainly  trying  to  inveigle 
Locke  into  a  fault,  the  government  resolved  to  punish  him 
without  one.  Orders  came  from  Whitehall  that  he  should  be 
ejected  ;  and  those  orders  the  dean  and  canons  made  haste  to 
obey. 

Locke  was  travelling  on  the  Continent  for  his  health,  when 

*  Grey'g  Narrative. 


430  BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

he  learned  that  he  had  been  deprived  of  his  home  and  of  hn 
bread  without  a  trial  or  even  a  notice.  The  injustice  with 
which  he  had  been  treated  would  have  excused  him  if  he  had 
resorted  to  violent  methods  of  redress.  But  he  was  not  to  be 
blinded  by  personal  resentment ;  he  augured  no  good  from  the 
schemes  of  those  who  had  assembled  at  Amsterdam :  and  he 
quietly  repaired  to  Utrecht,  where,  while  his  partners  in  mis- 
fortune were  planning  their  own  destruction,  he  employed 
himself  in  writing  his  celebrated  letter  on  Toleration.* 

The  English  government  was  early  apprized  that  something 
was  in  agitation  among  the  outlaws.  An  invasion  of  England 
seems  not  to  have  been  at  first  expected ;  but  it  was  appre- 
hended that  Argyle  would  shortly  appear  in  arms  among  h>' 
clansmen.  A  proclamation  was  accordingly  issued  directing 
that  Scotland  should  be  put  into  a  state  of  defence.  The 
militia  was  ordered  to  be  in  readiness.  All  the  clans  hostile 
to  the  name  of  Campbell  were  set  in  motion.  John  Murray, 
Marquess  of  Athol,  was  appointed  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Argyle- 
shire,  and,  at  the  head  of  a  great  body  of  his  followers,  occu- 
pied the  castle  of  Inverary.  Some  suspected  persons  were 
arrested.  Others  were  compelled  to  give  hostages.  Ships  of 
war  were  sent  to  cruise  near  the  Isle  of  Bute  ;  and  part  of 
the  army  of  Ireland  was  moved  to  the  coast  of  Ulster,  t 

While  these  preparations  were  making  in  Scotland,  James 
called  into  his  closet  Arnold  Van  Citters,  who  had  long  resided 
in  England  as  ambassador  from  the  United  Provinces,  and 
Everard  Van  Dykvelt,  who,  after  the  death  of  Charles,  had 
been  sent  by  the  States  General  on  a  special  mission  of  con- 
dolence and  congratulation.  The  king  said  that  he  had  re- 
ceived from  unquestionable  sources  intelligence  of  designs 
which  were  forming  against  his  throne  by  his  banished  sub- 
jects in  Holland.  Some  of  the  exiles  were  cutthroats,  whom 
nothing  but  the  special  providence  of  God  had  prevented  from 

*  Le  Clerc's  Life  of  Locke ;  Lord  King's  Life  of  Locke ;  Lord 
Grenville's  Oxford  and  Locke.  Locke  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  Anabaptist  Nicholas  Look,  whose  name  is  spelt  Locke  in  Grey's 
Confession,  and  who  is  mentioned  in  the  Lansdowne  MS.  1152,  and 
in  the  Buccleuch  narrative  appended  to  Mr.  Rose's  dissertation.  I 
should  hardly  think  it  necessary  to  make  this  remark,  but  that  the 
similarity  of  the  two  names  appears  to  have  misled  a  man  so  well 
acquainted  with  the  history  of  those  times  as  Speaker  Onslow.  Sea 
his  note  on  Burnet,  i.  629. 

t  Wodrow,  book  Hi.  chap.  ix. ;  London  Gazette,  May  11,  1685  ; 
Barillon,  May  ff- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  431 

7  a  foul  murder ;  and  among  them  was  the  owner 
of  the  spot  which  had  been  fixed  for  the  butchery.  "  Of  all 
men  living,"  said  the  king,  "  Argyle  has  the  greatest  means 
of  annoying  me ;  and  of  all  places  Holland  is  that  whence  a 
blow  may  be  best  aimed  against  me."  Citters  and  Dykvelt 
assured  his  majesty  that  what  he  had  said  should  instantly 
be  communicated  to  the  government  which  they  represented, 
ind  expressed  a  full  confidence  that  every  exertion  would  be 
made  to  satisfy  him.* 

The  ambassadors  were  justified  in  expressing  this  ccn« 
fidence.  Both  the*  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  States  General 
were,  at  this  time,  most  desirous  that  the  hospitality  of  their 
country  should  not  be  abused  for  purposes  of  which  the  Eng- 
lish government  could  justly  complain.  James  had  lately 
held  language  which  encouraged  the  hope  that  he  would  not 
patiently  submit  to  the  ascendency  of  France.  It  seemed 
probable  that  he  would  consent  to  form  a  close  alliance  with  the 
United  Provinces  and  the  House  of  Austria.  There  was,  there- 
fore, at  the  Hague,  an  extreme  anxiety  to  avoid  all  that  could 
give  him  offence.  The  personal  interest  of  William  was  also 
on  this  occasion  identical  with  the  interest  of  his  father-in-law. 

But  the  case  was  one  which  required  rapid  and  vigorous 
action ;  and  the  nature  of  the  Batavian  institutions  made  such 
action  almost  impossible.  The  Union  of  Utrecht,  rudely 
formed,  admidst  the  agonies  of  a  revolution,  for  the  purpose 
of  meeting  immediate  exigencies,  had  never  been  deliberately 
revised  and  perfected  in  a  time  of  tranquillity.  Every  one 
of  the  seven  commonwealths  which  that  union  had  bound 
together  retained  almost  all  the  rights  of  sovereignty,  and 
asserted  those  rights  punctiliously  against  the  central  govern- 
ment. As  the  federal  authorities  had  not  the  means  of  exact- 
ing prompt  obedience  from  the  provincial  authorities,  so  the 
provincial  authorities  had  not  the  means  of  exacting  prompt 
obedience  from  the  municipal  authorities.  Holland  alone  con- 
tained eighteen  cities,  each  of  which  was,  for  many  purposes, 
an  independent  state,  jealous  of  all  interference  from  without 
if  the  rulers  of  such  a  city  received  from  the  Hague  an  order 
which  was  unpleasing  to  them,  they  either  neglected  it  alto- 
gether, or  executed  it  languidly  and  tardily.  In  some  town 
councils,  indeed,  the  influence  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  was 
ill  powerful.  But  unfortunately  the  place  where  the  Biitish 

*  Register  of  the  Proceedings  a  the  States   General,  May  ffc, 
685. 


432  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

exiles  had  congregated,  and  where  their  ships  had  been 
fitted  out,  was  the  rich  and  populous  Amsterdam  ;  and  the 
magistrates  of  Amsterdam  were  the  heads  of  the  faction  hos- 
tile to  the  federal  government  and  to  the  House  of  Nassau. 
The  naval  administration  of  the  United  Provinces  was  con- 
ducted by  five  distinct  boards  of  admiralty.  One  of  those 
boards  sate  at  Amsterdam,  was  partly  nominated  by  the 
authorities  of  that  city,  and  seems  to  have  been  entirely  ani- 
mated by  their  spirit. 

All  the  endeavors  of  the  federal  government  to  effect  what 
James  desired  were  frustrated  by  the  evasions  of  the  func- 
tionaries of  Amsterdam,  and  by  the  blunders  of  Colonel  Bevil 
Skelton,  who  had  just  arrived  at  the  Hague  as  envoy  from 
England.  Skelton  had  been  born  in  Holland  during  the 
English  troubles,  and  was  therefore  supposed  to  be  pecu- 
liarly qualified  for  his  post ;  *  but  he  was,  in  truth,  unfit  for  that 
and  for  every  other  diplomatic  situation.  Excellent  judges  of 
character  pronounced  him  to  be  the  most  shallow,  fickle,  pas- 
sionate, presumptuous,  and  garrulous  of  men.t  He  took  no 
serious  notice  of  the  proceedings  of  the  refugees  till  three 
vessels  which  had  been  equipped  for  the  expedition  to  Scot- 
land were  safe  out  of  the  Zuyder  Zee,  till  the  arms,  ammuni- 
tion, and  provisions  were  on  board,  and  till  the  passengers 
had  embarked.  Then,  instead  of  applying,  as  he  should 
have  done,  to  the  States  General,  who  sate  close  to  his 
own  door,  he  sent  a  messenger  to  the  magistrates  of  Amster- 
dam, with  a  request  that  the  suspected  ships  might  be  de- 
tained. The  magistrates  of  Amsterdam  answered  that  the 
entrance  of  the  Zuyder  Zee  was  out  of  their  jurisdiction,  and 
referred  him  to  the  federal  government.  It  was  notorious 
that  this  was  a  mere  excuse,  and  that,  if  there  had  beei» 
any  real  wish  at  the  Stadthouse  of  Amsterdam  to  prevea 
•  Argyle  from  sailing,  no  difficulties  would  have  been  made 
Skelton  now  addressed  himself  to  the  States  General.  The) 
showed  every  disposition  to  comply  with  his  demand,  and,  at 
the  case  was  urgent,  departed  from  the  course  which*  thej 
ordinarily  observed  in  the  transaction  of  business.  On  the 
same  day  on  which  he  made  his  application  to  them,  an  order, 
drawn  in  exact  conformity  with  his  request,  was  despatched  to 
the  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam.  But  this  order,  in  consequence 

•  This  is  mentioned  in  hia  credentials  dated  on  the  16th  of  March, 
168|. 
t  Bonrepaux  to  Scignelay,  Feb.'-j^-,  1686. 


11ISTOKY    OV   ENGLAND.  433 

of  some  misinformation  which  he  had  received,  did  not  cor- 
rectly describe  the  situation  of  the  ships.  They  were  said  to 
be  in  the  Texel.  They  were  in  the  Vlie.  The  Admiralty  of 
Amsterdam  made  this  error  a  plea  for  doing  nothing ;  and, 
before  the  error  could  be  rectified,  the  three  ships  had  sailed.* 

The  last  hours  which  Argyle  passed  on  the  coast  of  Hol- 
land were  hours  of  great  anxiety.  Near  him  lay  a  Dutch 
man  of  war  whose  broadside  would  in  a  moment  have  put 
an  end  to  his  expedition.  Round  his  little  fleet  a  boat  was 
rowing,  in  which  were  some  persons  with  telescopes  whom 
he  suspected  to  be  spies.  But  no  effectual  step  was  taken  for 
the  purpose  of  detaining  him ;  and  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
second  of  May  he  stood  out  to  sea  before  a  favorable  breeze.t 

The  voyage  was  prosperous.  On  the  sixth  the  Orkneys 
were  in  sight.  Argyle  very  unwisely  anchored  off  Kirkvall. 
and  allowed  two  of  his  followers  to  go  on  shore  there.  The 
bishop  ordered  them  to  be  arrested.  The  refugees  proceeded 
to  hold  a  long  and  animated  debate  on  this  misadventure ; 
for,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  their  expedition,  how- 
ever languid  and  irresolute  their  conduct  might  be,  they  nevei 
in  debate  wanted  spirit  or  perseverance.  Some  were  for 
an  attack  on  Kirkwall.  Some  were  for  proceeding  withom 
delay  to  Argyleshire.  At  last  the  earl  seized  some  gentlemen 
who  lived  near  the  coast  of  the  island,  and  proposed  to  the 
bishop  an  exchange  of  prisoners.  The  bishop  returned  no 
answer ;  and  the  fleet,  after  losing  three  days,  sailed  away. 

This  delay  was  full  of  danger.  It  was  speedily  known  at 
Edinburgh  that  the  rebel  squadron  had  touched  at  the  Ork- 
neys. Troops  were  instantly  put  in  motion.  When  the 
earl  reached  his  own  province,  be  found  that  preparations 


•  Avaux  Neg.  £g^J,  May  •&,  May  •&,  1685 ;  Sir  Patrick  Hume's 
Narrative;  Letter  from  the  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam  to  the  States 
General,  dated  June  20,  1685 ;  Memorial  of  Skelton,  delivered  to-tiio 
States  General,  May  10,  1685. 

t  I  may  here  remark  that  the  editor  of  the  Oxford  edition  of  Bur- 
net  attempts  to  excuse  the  murder  of  John  Brown,  the  Christian 
carrier,  by  alleging  that  Claverhouse  was  then  employed  to  intercept 
all  communication  between  Argyle  and  Monmouth,  and  by  supposing 
that  the  Christian  carrier  may  have  been  detected  in  conveying  intel- 
ligence between  the  rebel  camps.  Unfortunately  for  this  hypothesis, 
the  Christian  carrier  was  shot  on  the  first  of  May,  when  both  Argyle 
and  Monmouth  were  in  Holland,  and  when  there  was  no  insurrection 
in  either  England  or  Scotland. 
VOL.  I.  37 


434  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

had  been  made  to  repel  him.  At  Dunstaffnage  he  sent  his 
second  son  Charles  on  shore  to  call  the  Campbells  to  arms. 
But  Charles  returned  with  gloomy  tidings.  The  herdsmen 
and  fishermen  were  indeed  ready  to  rally  round  Mac  Callum 
More ;  but,  of  the  heads  of  the  clan,  some  were  in  confine- 
ment, and  others  had  fled.  Those  gentlemen  who  remained 
at  their  homes  were  either  well  affected  to  the  government  or 
afraid  of  moving,  and  refused  even  to  see  the  son  of  their 
chief.  From  Dunstaffnage  the  small  armament  proceeded  to 
Campbelltown,  near  the  southern  extremity  of  the  peninsul? 
of  Kintyre.  Here  the  earl  published  a  manifesto,  drawn  uo 
in  Holland,  under  the  direction  of  the  committee,  by  James 
Stewart,  a  Scotch  advocate,  whose  pen  was,  a  few  months 
later,  employed  in  a  very  different  way.  In  this  paper  were 
set  forth,  with  a  strength  of  language  sometimes  approaching 
to  scurrility,  many  real  and  some  imaginary  grievances.  Ii 
was  hinted  that  the  late  king  had  died  by  poison.  A  chief 
object  of  the  expedition  was  declared  to  be  the  entire  sup- 
pression, not  only  of  Popery,  but  of  prelacy,  which  was 
termed  the  most  bitter  root  and  offspring  of  Popery ;  and  all 
good  Scotchmen  were  exhorted  to  do  valiantly  for  the  cause 
of  their  country  and  of  their  God. 

Zealous  as  Argyle  was  for  what  he  considered  as  pure 
religion,  he  did  not  scruple  to  practise  one  rite  half  popish 
and  half  pagan.  The  mysterious  cross  of  yew,  first  set  on 
fire  and  then  quenched  in  the  blood  of  a  goat,  was  sent  forth 
to  summon  all.  the  Campbells,  from  sixteen  to  sixty.  The 
isthmus  of  Tarbet  was  appointed  for  the  place  of  gathering. 
The  muster,  though  small  indeed  when  compared  with  what 
it  would  have  been  if  the  spirit  and  strength  of  the  clan  had 
been  unbroken,  was  still  formidable.  The  whole  force  as- 
sembled amounted  to  about  eighteen  hundred  men.  Argyle 
divided  his  mountaineers  into  three  regiments,  and  proceeded 
to  appoint  officers. 

The  bickerings  which  had  begun  in  Holland  had  never 
been  intermitted  during  the  whole  course  of  the  expedition  ; 
but  at  Tarbet  they  became  more  violent  than  ever.  The 
committee  wished  to  interfere  even  with  the  patriarchal 
dominion  of  the  earl  over  the  Campbells,  and  would  not 
allow  him  to  settle  the  military  rank  of  his  kinsmen  by  his 
own  authority.  While  these  disputatious  meddlers  tried  to 
wrest  from  him  his  power  over  the  Highlands,  they  carried 
on  their  own  correspondence  with  the  Lowlands,  and  received 


HISTORY    OT    ENGLANO.  435 

and  gent  tetters  which  were  never  communicated  to  the  nom- 
inal general.  Hume  and  his  confederates  had  reserved  to 
themselves  the  superintendence  of  the  stores,  and  conducted 
this  important  part  of  the  administration  of  war  with  a  laxity 
hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  dishonesty,  suffered  the  arms 
to  be  spoiled,  wasted  the  provisions,  and  lived  riotously  at  a 
time  when  they  ought  to  have  set  to  all  beneath  them  an 
example  of  abstemiousness. 

The  great  question  was,  whether  the  Highlands  or  the 
Lowlands  should  be  the  seat  of  war.  The  earl's  first  object 
was  to  establish  his  authority  over  his  own  domains,  to 
drive  out  the  invading  clans  which  had  been  poured  from 
Perthshire  into  Argyleshire,  and  to  take  possession  of  the 
ancient  seat  of  his  family  at  Inverary.  He  might  then  hope 
to  have  four  or  five  thousand  claymores  at  his  command. 
With  such  a  force  he  would  be  able  to  defend  that  wild 
country  against  the  whole  power  of  the  kingdom  of  Scotland, 
and  would  also  have  secured  an  excellent  base  for  offensive 
operations.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  wisest  course  open 
to  him.  Rumbold,  who  had  been  trained  in  an  excellent 
military  school,  and  who,  as  an  Englishman,  might  be  sup- 
posed to  be  an  impartial  umpire  between  the  Scottish  factions, 
did  all  in  his  power  to  strengthen  the  earl's  hands.  But 
Hume  and  Cochrane  were  utterly  impracticable.  Their 
jealousy  of  Argyle  was,  in  truth,  stronger  than  their  wish  for 
the  success  of  the  expedition.  They  saw  that,  among  his 
own  mountains  and  lakes,  and  at  the  head  of  an  army  chiefly 
composed  of  his  own  tribe,  he  would  be  able  to  bear  down 
their  opposition,  and  to  exercise  the  full  authority  of  a  general. 
They  muttered  that  the  only 'men  who  had  the  good  cause  at 
heart  were  the  Lowlanders,  and  that  the  Campbells  took  up 
arms  neither  for  liberty  nor  for  the  Church  of  God,  but  for 
Mac  Call  urn  More  alone.  Cochrane  declared  that  he  would 
go  to  Ayrshire  if  he  went  by  himself,  and  with  nothing  but  a 
pitchfork  in  his  hand.  Argyle,  after  long  resistance,  con- 
sented, against  his  better  judgment,  to  divide  his  little  army. 
He  remained  with  Rumbold  in  the  Highlands.  Cochrane  and 
Hume  were  at  the  head  of  the  force  which  sailed  to  invade 
the  Lowlands. 

Ayrshire  was  Cochrane's  object :  but  the  coast  of  Ayrshirtr 
was  guarded  by  English  frigates  ;  and  the  adventurers  wer« 
under  the  necessity  of  running  up  the  estuary  of  the  Clyde 
to  Greenock,  then  a  small  fishing  village  consisting  of  a 


436  HISTORY  or  ENGLAND. 

single  row  of  thatched  hovels,  now  a  great  and  fiourisning 
port,  of  which  the  customs  amount  to  more  than  five  times 
the  whole  revenue  which  the  Stuarts  derived  from  the  king- 
dom of  Scotland.  A  party  of  militia  lay  at  Greenock  ;  but 
Cochrane,  who  wanted  provisions,  was  determined  to  land. 
Hume  objected.  Cochrane  was  peremptory,  and  ordered  an 
officer,  named  Elphinstone,  to  take  twenty  men  in  a  boat  to 
the  shore.  But  the  wrangling  spirit  of  the  leaders  had 
infected  all  ranks.  Elphinstone  answered  that  he  was  bound  to 
obey  only  reasonable  commands,  that  he  considered  this  com- 
mand as  unreasonable,  and,  in  short,  that  he  would  not  go. 
Major  Fullarton,  a  brave  man,  esteemed  by  all  parties,  but 
peculiarly  attached  to  Argyle,  undertook  to  land  with  only 
twelve  men,  and  did  so  in  spite  of  a  fire  from  the  coast.  A 
slight  skirmish  followed.  The  militia  fell  back.  Cochrane 
entered  Greenock  and  procured  a  supply  of  meal,  but  found 
no  disposition  to  insurrection  among  the  people. 

In  fact,  the  state  of  public  feeling  in  Scotland  was  not 
such  as  the  exiles,  misled  by  the  infatuation  common  in  all 
ages  to  exiles,  had  supposed  it  to  be.  The  government  was, 
indeed,  hateful  and  hated.  But  the  malcontents  were  divided 
into  parties  which  were  almost  as  hostile  to  one  another  as  to 
their  rulers  ;  nor  was  any  of  those  parties  eager  to  join  the 
invaders.  Many  thought  that  the  insurrection  had  no  chance 
of  success.  The  spirit  of  many  had  been  effectually  broken 
by  Jong  and  rrrel  oppression.  There  was,  indeed,  a  class 
of  enthusiast',  who  were  little  in  the  habit  of  calculating 
chances,  and  whom  oppression  had  not  tamed  but  maddened, 
But  these  men  saw  little  difference  between  Argyle  and 
James.  Their  wrath  had  been  heated  to  such  a  temperature 
that  what  every  body  else  would  have  called  boiling  zeal 
seemed  to  them  Laodicean  lukewarmness.  The  earl's  pasi 
life  had  been  stained  by  what  they  regarded  as  the  vilesJ 
apostasy.  The  very  Highlanders  whom  he  now  summoned  t<? 
extirpate  prelacy  he  had  a  few  years  before  summoned  to 
defend  it.  And  were  slaves  who  knew  nothing  and  cared 
nothing  about  religion,  who  were  ready  to  fight  for  synodical 
government,  for  Episcopacy,  for  Popery,  just  as  Mac  Callum 
More  might  be  pleased  to  command,  fit  allies  for  the  people 
of  God  ?  The  manifesto,  indecent  and  intolerant  as  was  its 
tone,  was,  in  the  view  of  these  fanatics,  a  cowardly  and 
worldly  performance.  A  settlement  such  as  Argyle  would 
have  made,  such  as  was  afterwards  made  by  a  mightier  and 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  437 

happier  deliverer,  seemed  to  them  not  worth  a  struggle. 
They  wanted  not  only  freedom  of  conscience  for  themselves, 
but  absolute  dominion  over  the  consciences  of  others,  not 
only  the  Presbyterian  doctrine,  polity,  and  worship,  but  the 
Covenant  in  its  utmost  rigor.  Nothing  would  content  them 
but  that  every  end  for  which  civil  society  exists  should  be 
sacrificed  to  the  ascendency  of  a  theological  system.  One 
who  believed  no  form  of  church  government  to  be  worth  a 
breach  of  Christian  charity,  and  who  recommended  com- 
prehension and  toleration,  was,  in  their  phrase,  halting  between 
Jehovah  and  Baal.  One  who  condemned  such  acts  as  the 
murder  of  Cardinal  Beatoun  and  Archbishop  Sharpe,  fell 
into  the  same  sin  for  which  Saul  had  been  rejected  from 
being  king  over  Israel.  All  the  rules  by  which,  among  civ- 
ilized and  Christian  men,  the  horrors  of  war  are  mitigated 
were  abominations  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord.  Quarter  was  to 
be  neither  taken  nor  given.  A  Malay  running  a  muck,  a 
mad  dog  pursued  by  a  crowd,  were  the  models  to  be  imitated 
by  Christian  men  fighting  in  just  self-defence.  To  reasons 
such  as  guide  the  conduct  of  statesmen  and  generals  the 
minds  of  these  zealots  were  absolutely  impervious.  That  a 
man  should  venture  to  urge  such  reasons  was  sufficient  evi- 
dence that  he  was  not  one  of  the  faithful.  If  the  divine 
blessing  were  withheld,  little  would  be  effected  by  crafty 
politicians,  by  veteran  captains,  by  cases  of  arms  from  Hol- 
land, or  by  regiments  of  unregenerate  Celts  from  the  moun- 
tains of  Lorn.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Lord's  time  were 
indeed  come,  he  could  still,  as  of  old,  cause  the  foolish  things 
of  the  world  to  confound  the  wise,  and  could  save  alike  by 
many  and  by  few.  The  broadswords  of  Athol  and  the 
bayonets  of  Claverhouse  would  be  put  to  rout  by  weapons 
as  insignificant  as  the  sling  of  David  or  the  pitcher  of 
Gideon.* 

Cochrane,  having  found  it  impossible  to  raise  the  popula 
tion  on  the  south  of  the  Clyde,  rejoined  Argyle,  who  was  in 
the  Island  of  Bute.  The  earl  now  again  proposed  to  make 
an  attempt  upon  Inverary.  Again  he  encountered  a  per- 

*  If  any  person  is  inclined  to  suspect  that  I  have  exaggerated  the 
absurdity  and  ferocity  of  these  men,  I  would  advise  him  to  read  two 
•  books,  which  will  convince  him  that  I  have  rather  softened  thaw 
overcharged  the  portrait  —  the  "Hind  let  loose,"  and  "Faithful  Cou 
tendings  displayed." 

37* 


438  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

tinacious  opposition.  The  seamen  sided  with  Hume  and 
Cochrane.  The  Highlanders  were  absolutely  at  the  com- 
mand of  their  chieftain.  There  was  reason  to  fear  that  the 
two  parties  would  come  to  blows ;  and  the  dread  of  such  a 
.disaster  induced  the  council  to  make  some  concession.  The 
castle  of  Ealan  Ghierig,  situated  at  the  mouth  of  Loch  Rid- 
dan,  was  selected  to  be  the  chief  place  of  arms.  The  military 
stores  were  disembarked  there.  The  squadron  was  moored 
close  to  the  walls,  in  a  place  where  it  was  protected  by  rocks 
^nd  shallows  such  as,  it  was  thought,  no  frigate  could  pass. 
Outworks  were  thrown  up.  A  battery  was  planted  with 
some  small  guns  taken  from  the  shJps.  The  command  of 
the  fort  was  most  unwisely  given  to  E'phinstone,  who  had 
already  proved  himself  much  more  disposed  to  argue  with  his 
commanders  than  to  fight  the  enemy. 

And  now,  during  a  few  hours,  there  was  some  show  of  vigor. 
Rumbold  took  the  castle  of  Ardkinglass.  The  earl  skirmished 
successfully  with  Athol's  troops,  and  was  about  to  advance  on 
Inverary,  when  alarming  news  from  the  ships  and  factions 
;n  the  committee  forced  him  to  turn  back.  The  king's  frig- 
ates had  come  nearer  to  Ealan  Ghierig  than  had  been  thought 
possible.  The  Lowland  gentlemen  positively  refused  to  ad- 
vance farther  into  the  Highlands.  Argyle  hastened  back  to 
Ealan  Ghierig.  There  he  proposed  to  make  an  attack  on 
ihe  frigates.  His  ships,  indeed,  were  ill  fitted  for  such  an 
encounter.  But  they  would  have  been  supported  by  a  flotilla 
of  thirty  large  fishing  boats,  each  well  manned  with  armed 
Highlanders.  The  committee,  however,  refused  to  listen  to 
this  plan,  and  effectually  counteracted  it  by  raising  a  mutiny 
among  the  sailors. 

All  was  now  confusion  and  despondency.  The  provisions 
had  been  so  ill  managed  by  the  committee  that  there  was  no 
longer  food  for  the  troops.  The  Highlanders  consequently 
deserted  by  hundreds ;  and  the  earl,  broken-hearted  by  his 
misfortunes,  yielded  to  the  urgency  of  those  who  still  pertina- 
ciously insisted  that  he  should  march  into  the  Lowlands. 

The  little  army  therefqre  hastened  to  the  shore  of  Loch 
Long,  passed  that  inlet  by  night  in  boats,  and  landed  in  Dum- 
bartonshire. Hither,  on  the  following  morning,  came  news 
that  the  frigates  had  forced  a  passage,  that  all  the  earl's  ships 
nad  beep  taken,  and  that  Elphinstone  had  fled  from  Ealaa 
Ghierig  without  a  blow,  leaving  fhe  castle  and  store*  to  the 
enemy. 


HISTORY    OF     ENGLAND.  439 

All  that  remained  was  to  invade  the  Lowlands  under  every 
disadvantage.  Argyle  resolved  to  make  a  bold  push  for  Glas- 
gow. But,  as  soon  as  this  resolution  was  announced,  the  very 
men  who  had,  up  to  that  moment,  been  urging  him  to  hasten 
into  the  low  country  took  fright,  argued,  remonstrated,  and, 
when  argument  and  remonstrance  proved  vain,  laid  a  scheme 
for  seizing  the  boats,  making  their  own  escape,  and  leaving 
their  general  and  his  clansmen  to  conquer  or  perish  unaided. 
This  scheme  failed  ;  and  the  poltroons  who  had  formed  it  were 
compelled  to  share  with  braver  men  the  risks  of  the  last 
venture. 

During  the  march  through  the  country  which  lies  between 
Loch  Long  and  Loch  Lomond,  the  insurgents  were  constantly 
infested  by  parties  of  militia.  Some  skirmishes  took  place, 
in  which  the  earl  had  the  advantage ;  but  the  bands  which  he 
repelled,  falling  back  before  him,  spread  the  tidings  of  his 
approach,  and,  soon  after  he  had  crossed  the  River  Leven,  he 
found  a  strong  body  of  regular  and  irregular  troops  prepared 
to  encounter  him. 

He  was  for  giving  battle.  Ayloffe  was  of  the  same  opinion. 
Hume,  on  the  other  hand,  declared  that  to  engage  the  enemy 
would  be  madness.  He  saw  one  regiment  in  scarlet.  More 
might  be  behind.  To  attack  such  a  force  was  to  rush  on 
certain  death.  The  best  course  was,  to  remain  quiet  till  night, 
and  thten  to  give  the  enemy  the  slip. 

A  sharp  altercation  followed,  which  was  with  difficulty 
quieted  by  the  mediation  of  Rumbold.  It  was  now  evening. 
The  hostile  armies  encamped  at  no  great  distance  from  each 
other.  The  earl  ventured  to  propose  a  night  attack,  and  was 
again  overruled. 

Since  it  was  determined  not  to  fight,  nothing  was  left  but  to 
take  the  step  which  Hume  had  recommended.  There  was  a 
chance  that,  by  decamping  secretly,  and  hastening  all  night 
across  heaths  and  morasses,  the  earl  might  gain  many  miles 
on  the  enemy,  and  might  reach  Glasgow  without  further  ob- 
struction. The  watch  fires  were  left  burning ;  and  the  march 
began.  And  now  disaster  followed  disaster  fast.  The  guides 
mistook  the  track  across  the  moors,  and  led  the  army  into 
boggy  ground.  Military  order  could  not  be  preserved  by  un- 
disciplined and  disheartened  soldiers  under  a  dark  sky,  and 
on  a  treacherous  and  uneven  soil.  Panic  after  panic  spread 
through  the  broken  ranks.  Every  sight  and  sound  was 
bought  to  indicate  the  approach  of  pursuers.  Some  of  the 


440  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

officers  contributed  to  spread  the  terror  which  it  was  their  duty 
to  calm.  The  army  had  become  a  mob ;  and  the  mob  melted 
fast  away.  Great  numbers  fled  under  cover  of  the  night. 
Rumbold  and  some  other  brave  men  whom  no  danger  could 
have  scared  lost  their  way,  and  were  unable  to  rejoin  the  main 
body.  When  the  day  broke,  only  five  hundred  fugitives, 
wearied  and  dispirited,  assembled  at  Kilpatri«k. 

All  thought  of  prosecuting  the  war  was  at  an  end  ;  and  it 
vas  plain  that  the  chiefs  of  the  expedition  would  have  suffi- 
ient  difficulty  in  escaping  with  their  lives.  They  fled  in 
different  directions.  Hume  reached  the  Continent  in  safety. 
(x>chrane  was  taken  and  sent  up  to  London.  Argyle  hoped 
10  find  a  secure  asylum  under  the  roof  of  one  of  his  old  ser- 
vants who  lived  near  Kilpatrick.  But  this  hope  was  disap- 
pointed ;  and  he  was  forced  to  cross  the  Clyde.  He  assumed 
the  dress  of  a  peasant,  and  pretended  to  be  the  guide  of  Ma- 
jor Fullarton,  whose  courageous  fidelity  was  proof  to  all  dan- 
ger. The  friends  journeyed  together  through  Renfrewshire  as 
far  as  Inchinnan.  At  that  place  the  Black  Cart  and  the  White 
Cart,  two  streams  which  now  flow  through  prosperous  towns, 
and  turn  the  wheels  of  many  factories  but  which  then  held  their 
quiet  course  through  moors  and  sheepwalks,  mingle  before 
they  join  the  Clyde.  The  only  ford  by  which  the  travellers 
could  cross  was  guarded  by  a  party  of  militia.  Some  questions 
were  asked.  Fullarton  tried  to  draw  suspicion  on  himself,  in 
order  that  his  companion  might  escape  unnoticed.  But  the 
minds  of  the  questioners  misgave  them  that  the  guide  was  not 
the  rude  clown  that  he  seemed.  They  laid  hands  on  him. 
He  broke  loose  and  sprang  into  the  water,  but  was  instantly 
chased.  He  stood  at  bay  for  a  short  time  against  five  assail- 
ants. But  he  had  no  arms  except  his  pocket  pistols,  and  they 
were  so  wet,  in  consequence  of  his  plunge,  that  they  would 
not  go  off.  He  was  struck  to  the  ground  with  a  broadsword 
and  secured. 

He  owned  himself  to  be  the  Earl  of  Argyle,  probably  in  the 
hope  that  his  great  name  would  excite  the  awe  and  pity  of 
those  who  had  seized  him.  And  indeed  they  were  much 
..loved.  For  they  were  plain  Scotchmen  of  humble  rank, 
und,  though  in  arms  for  the  crown,  probably  cherished  a  pref- 
erence for  the  Calvinistic  church  government  and  worship, 
and  had  been  accustomed  to  reverence  their  captive  as  the 
head  of  an  illustrious  house  and  as  a  champion  of  the  Protes- 
tant religion.  But,  though  they  were  evidently  touched,  and 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  441 

though  some  of  them  even  wept,  they  were  not  disposed  to 
relinquish  a  large  reward  and  to  incur  the  vengeance  of  an  im- 
placable government.  They  therefore  conveyed  their  prisoner 
to  Renfrew.  The  man  who  bore  the  chief  part  in  the  arrest 
was  named  Riddell.  On  this  account  the  whole  race  of  Rid- 
dells  was,  during  more  than  a  century,  held  in  abhorrence  by 
the  great  tribe  of  Campbell.  Within  living  memory,  when  a 
Riddeli  visited  a  fair  in  Argyleshire,  he  found  it  necessary  to 
assume  a  false  name. 

And  now  commenced  the  brightest  part  of  Argyle's  career. 
His  enterprise  had  hitherto  brought  on  him  nothing  but  re- 
proach and  derision.  His  great  error  was,  that  he  did  not 
resolutely  refuse  to  accept  the  name  without  the  power  of  a 
general.  Had  he  remained  quietly  at  his  retreat  in  Friesland 
he  would  in  a  few  years  have  been  recalled  with  honor  to  his 
country,  and  would  have  been  conspicuous  among  the  orna- 
ments and  the  props  of  constitutional  monarchy.  Had  he 
conducted  his  expedition  according  to  his  own  views,  and  car- 
ried with  him  no  followers  but  such  as  were  prepared  impli- 
citly to  obey  all  his  orders,  he  might  possibly  have  effected 
something  great.  For  what  he  wanted  as  a  captain  seems  to 
have  been,  not  courage,  nor  activity,  nor  skill,  but  simply 
authority.  He  should  have  known  that  of  all  wants  this  is  the 
most  fatal.  Armies  have  triumphed  under  leaders  who  pos- 
sessed no  very  eminent  qualifications.  But  what  army  com- 
manded by  a  debating  club  ever  escaped  discomfiture  and 
disgrace  ? 

The  great  calamity  which  had  fallen  on  Argyle  had  this 
advantage,  that  it  enabled  him  to  show,  by  proofs  not  to  be 
mistaken,  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  From  the  day  when 
he  quitted  Friesland  to  the  day  when  his  followers  separated 
at  Kiipatrick,  he  had  never  been  a  free  agent.  He  had 
borne  the  responsibility  of  a  long  series  of  measures  which 
his  judgment  disapproved.  Now  at  length  he  stood  alone. 
Captivity  had  restored  to  him  the  noblest  kind  of  liberty,  the 
liberty  of  governing  himself  in  all  his  words  and  actions 
according  to  his  own  sense  of  the  right  and  of  the  becoming. 
All  at  once  he  became  as  one  inspired  with  new  wisdom  and 
virtue.  His  intellect  seemed  to  be  strengthened  and  concen- 
trated, his  moral  character  to  be  at  onut-  elevated  and  softened. 
The  insolence  of  the  conquerors  spared  nothing  that  could  try 
the  temper  of  a  man  proud  of  ancient  nobility  and  of  patri- 
archal dominion.  The  prisoner  was  dragged  through  Ed.'n- 

37* 


4452  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

burgh  in  triuirph.  He  walked  on  foot,  bareheaded,  up  me 
whole  length  of  that  stately  street  which,  overshadowed  by 
dark  and  gigantic  piles  of  stone,  leads  from  Holyrood  House 
to  the  castle.  Before  him  marched  the  hangman,  bearing 
the  ghastly  instrument  which  was  to  be  used  at  the  quartering 
block.  The  victorious  party  had  not  forgotten  that,  thirty-five 
years  before  this  time,  the  father  of  Argyle  had  been  at  the 
head  of  the  faction  which  put  Montrose  to  death.  Before  that 
event  the  houses  of  Graham,  and  Campbell  had  borne  no  love 
to  each  other ;  and  they  had  ever  since  been  at  deadly  feud. 
Care  was  taken  that  the  prisoner  should  pass  through  the  same 
gate  and  the  same  streets  through  which  Montrose  had  been 
led  to  the  same  doom.  The  troops  who  attended  the  proces- 
sion were  put  under  the  command  of  Claverhouse,  the  fiercest 
and  sternest  of  the  race  of  Graham.  When  the  earl  reached 
the  castle  his  legs  were  put  in  irons,  and  he  was  informed 
that  he  had  but  a  few  days  to  live.  It  had  been  determined 
not  to  bring  him  to  trial  for  his  recent  offence,  but  to  put 
him  to  death  under  the  sentence  pronounced  against  him  sev- 
eral years  before,  a  sentence  so  flagitiously  unjust  that  the 
most  servile  and  obdurate  lawyers  of  that  bad  age  could  not 
speak  of  it  without  shame. 

But  neither  the  ignominious  procession  up  the  High  Street, 
nor  the  near  view  of  death,  had  power  to  disturb  the  gentle 
and  majestic  patience  of  Argyle.  His  fortitude  was  trieu  by 
a  still  more  severe  test.  A  paper  of  interrogatories  was  laid 
before  him  by  order  of  the  Privy  Council.  He  replied  to  those 
questions  to  which  he  could  reply  without  danger  to  any  of  his 
friends,  and  refused  to  say  more.  He  was  told  that  unless 
he  returned  fuller  answers  he  should  be  put  to  the  torture. 
James,  who  was  doubtless  sorry  that  he  could  not  feast  his 
own  eyes  with  the  sight  of  Argyle  in  the  boots,  sent  down 
to  Edinburgh  positive  orders  that  nothing  should  be  omitted 
which  could  wring  out  of  the  traitor  information  against  all  who 
had  been  concerned  in  the  treason.  But  menaces  were  vain. 
With  torments  and  aeatn  in  immediate  prospect,  Mac  Callum 
More  thougnt  far  less  of  himself  than  of  his  poor  clansmen. 
'  I  waj  busy  this  day,"  he  wrote  from  his  cell,  "  treating  for 
them,  and  in  some  hopes.  But  this  evening  orders  came  that 
I  must  die  upon  Monday  or  Tuesday  ;  and  I  am  to  be  put  to 
the  torture  if  I  answer  not  all  questions  upon  oath.  Yet  I 
hope  God  shall  support  me." 

The  torture  was  not  inflicted.     Perhaps  the  magnanimity 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  443 

of  the  victim  had  moved  the  conquerors  to  unwonted  com- 
passion. He  himself  remarked  that  at  first  they  had  been 
verv  harsh  to  him,  but  that  they  soon  began  to  treat  him  with 
respect  and  kindness.  God,  he  said,  had  melted  their  hearts. 
It  is  certain  that  he  did  not,  to  save  himself  from  the  utmost 
cruelty  of  his  enemies,  betray  any  of  his  friends.  On  the 
last  morning  of  his  life  he  wrote  these  words  :  "  I  have  named 
none  to  their  disadvantage.  I  thank  God  he  hath  supported 
me  wonderfully." 

He  composed  his  own  epitaph,  a  short  poem,  full  of  mean 
ing  and  spirit,  simple  and  forcible  in  style,  and  not  contempti- 
ble in  versification.  In  this  little  piece  he  complained  that, 
though  his  enemies  had  repeatedly  decreed  his  death,  his 
friends  had  been  still  more  cruel.  A  comment  on  these  ex- 
pressions is  to  be  found  in  a  letter  which  he  addressed  to  a 
lady  residing  in  Holland.  She  had  furnished  him  with  a 
large  sum  of  money  for  his  expedition,  and  he  thought  her 
entitled  to  a  full  explanation  of  the  causes  which  had  led  to 
his  failure.  He  acquitted  his  coadjutors  of  treachery,  but 
described  their  folly,  their  ignorance,  and  their  factious  per- 
verseness,  in  terms  which  their  own  testimony  has  since 
proved  to  have  been  richly  deserved.  He  afterwards  doubted 
whether  he  had  not  used  language  too  severe  to  become  a 
dying  Christian,  and  in  a  separate  paper,  begged  his  friends 
to  suppress  what  he  had  said  of  these  men.  "  Only  this  I 
must  acknowledge,"  he  mildly  added,  "  they  were  not  gov- 
ernable." 

Most  of  his  few  remaining  hours  were  passed  in  devotion,  and 
in  affectionate  intercourse  with  some  members  of  his  family. 
He  professed  no  repentance  on  account  of  his  last  enterprise, 
but  bewailed,  with  great  emotion,  his  former  compliance  in 
spiritual  things  with  the  pleasure  of  the  government.  He  had, 
he  said,  been  justly  punished.  One  who  had  so  long  been 
guilty  of  cowardice  and  dissimulation  was  not  worthy  to  be 
the  instrument  of  salvation  to  the  state  and  church.  Yet  the 
cause,  he  frequently  repeated,  was  the  cause  of  God,  and 
would  assuredly  triumph.  "  I  do  not,"  he  said,  "  take  on 
myself  to  be  a  prophet.  But  I  have  a  strong  impression  on 
my  spirit,  that  deliverance  will  come  very  suddenly."  It  is 
not  strange  that  some  zealous  Presbyterians  should  have  laid 
up  his  saying  in  their  hearts,  and  should,  at  a  later  period, 
lave  attributed  it  to  divine  inspiration. 

So  effectually  had    religious  faith  and  hope,   cooperating 


444  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

with  natural  courage  and  equanimity,  composed  his  spirits 
that,  on  the  very  day  on  which  he  was  to  die,  he  dined  with 
appetite,  conversed  with  gayety  at  table,  and,  after  his  last 
meal,  lay  down,  as  he  was  wont,  to  take  a  short  slumber,  in 
order  that  his  body  and  mind  might  be  in  full  vigor  when  he 
should  mount  the  scaffold.  At  this  time  one  of  the  lords  of 
the  council,  who  had  probably  .been  bred  a  Presbyterian,  and 
had  been  seduced  by  interest  to  join  in  oppressing  the  church 
of  which  he  had  once  been  a  member,  came  to  the  castle 
with  a  message  from  his  brethren,  and  demanded  admittance 
to  the  earl.  It  was  answered  that  the  earl  was  asleep.  The 
privy  councillor  thought  that  this  was  a  subterfuge,  and 
insisted  on  entering.  The  door  of  the  cell  was  softly  opened, 
and  there  lay  Argyle  on  the  bed,  sleeping,  in  his  irons,  the 
placid  sleep  of  infancy.  The  conscience  of  the  renegade 
smote  him.  He  turned  away  sick  at  heart,  ran  out  of  the 
castle,  and  took  refuge  in  the  dwelling  of  a  lady  of  his  fam- 
ily who  lived  hard  by.  There  he  flung  himself  on  a  couch, 
and  gave  himself  up  to  an  agony  of  remorse  and  shame. 
His  kinswoman,  alarmed  by  his  looks  and  groans,  thought 
that  he  had  been  taken  with  sudden  illness,  and  begged  him 
to  drink  a  cup  of  sack.  "  No,  no,"  he  said,  "  that  will  do 
me  no  good."  She  prayed  him  to  tell  her  what  had  disturbed 
him.  "  I  have  been,"  he  said,  "  in  Argyle's  prison.  I  have 
seen  him  within  an  hour  of  eternity,  sleeping  as  sweetly  as 
ever  man  did.  But  as  for  me ." 

And  now  the  earl  had  risen  from  his  bed,  and  had  prepared 
himself  for  what  was  yet  to  be  endured.  He  was  first 
brought  down  the  High  Street  to  the  Council  House,  where 
he  was  to  remain  during  the  short  interval  which  was  still  to 
elapse  before  the  execution.  During  that  interval  he  asked 
for  pen  and  ink,  and  wrote  to  his  wife.  *'  Dear  heart,  God  is 
unchangeable.  He  hath  always  been  good  and  gracious  to 
me,  and  no  place  alters  it.  Forgive  me  all  my  faults ;  and 
now  comfort  thyself  in  him,  in  whom  only  true  comfort  is  to 
be  found.  The  Lord  be  with  thee,  bless  and  comfort  thee, 
my  dearest.  Adieu." 

It  was  now  time  to  leave  the  Council  House.  The  divines 
who  attended  the  prisoner  were  not  of  his  own  persuasion ; 
but  he  listened  to  them  with  civility,  and  exhorted  them  to 
caution  their  flocks  against  those  doctrines  which  all  Protestant 
churches  unite  in  condemning.  He  mounted  the  scaffold, 
where  the  rude  old  guillotine  of  Scotland,  called  the  Maiden, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  445 

awaited  him,  and  addressed  the  people  in  a  speech,  tinctured 
with  the  peculiar  phraseology  of  his  sect,  but  breathing  the 
spirit  of  serene  piety.  His  enemies,  he  said,  he  forgave  as 
he  hoped  to  be  forgiven.  Only  a  single  acrimonious  expres- 
sion escaped  him.  One  of  the  episcopal  clergymen  who 
attended  him  went  to  the  edge  of  the  scaffold,  and  called  out 
in  a  loud  voice,  "  My  lord  dies  ,a  Protestant."  "  Yes,"  said 
the  earl,  stepping  forward,  "  and  not  only  a  Protestant,  but 
with  a  heart-hatred  of  Popery,  of  prelacy,  and  of  all  super- 
stition." He  then  embraced  his  friends,  put  into  their  hands 
some  tokens  of  remembrance  for  his  wife  and  children,  kneeled 
down,  laid  his  head  on  the  block,  prayed  for  a  little  space, 
and  gave  the  signal  to  the  executioner.  His  head  was  fixed 
on  the  top  of  the  Tolbooth,  where  the  head  of  Montrose  had 
formerly  decayed.* 

The  head  of  the  brave  and  sincere,  though  not  blameless 
Eumbold,  was  already  on  the  West  Port  of  Edinburgh. 
Surrounded  by  factious  and  cowardly  associates,  he  had, 
through  the  whole  campaign,  behaved  himself  like  a  soldier 
trained  in  the  school  of  the  great  Protector,  had  in  council 
strenuously  supported  the  authority  of  Argyle,  and  had  in  the 
field  been  distinguished  by  tranquil  intrepidity.  After,  the 
dispersion  of  the  army  he  was  set  upon  by  a  party  of  militia. 
He  defended  himself  desperately,  and  would  have  cut  his 
way  through  them  had  they  not  hamstringed  his  horse.  He 
was  brought  to  Edinburgh  mortally  wounded.  The  wish  of 
the  government  was  that  he  should  be  executed  in  England. 
But  he  was  so  near  death  that  if  he  was  not  hanged  in  Scot- 
land, he  could  not  be  hanged  at  all ;  and  the  pleasure  of 
hanging  him  was  one  which  the  conquerors  could  not  bear 
to  forego.  It  was,  indegd,  not  to  be  expected  that  they  would 
show  much  lenity  to  one  who  was  regarded  as  the  chief  of  the 
Rye  House  Plot,  and  who  was  the  owner  of  the  building  from 


*  The  authors  from  whom  I  have  taken  the  history  of  Argyle's 
expedition  are,  Sir  Patrick  Hume,  who  was  an  eye-witness  of  what 
he  related,  and  Wodrow,  who  had  access  to  materials  of  the  greatest 
value,  among  which  were  the  earl's  own  papers.  Wherever  there  is 
a  question  of  veracity  between  Argyle  and  Hume,  I  have  no  doubt 
that  Argyle's  narrative  ought  to  be  followed. 

See  also  Burnet,  i.  631,  and  the  Life  of  Bresson,  published  by  Dr. 

Mac  Cric.    The  account  of  the  Scotch  rebellion  in  Clarke's  Life  of 

James  the  Second,  is  a  ridiculous  romance,  composed  by  a  Jacobite 

who  did  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  look  at  a  map  of  the  seat  of  \»  or. 

TOL.  I.  38 


446  HISTOKt     OF    ENGLAND. 

which  that  plot  took  its  name ;  but  the  insolence  with  which 
they  treated  the  dying  man  seems  to  our  more  humane  age 
almost  incredible.  One  of  the  Scotch  privy  councillors  told 
him  that  he  was  a  confounded  villain.  "  I  am  at  peace  with 
God,"  answered  Rumbold,  calmly ;  "  how  then  can  I  be  con- 
founded?" 

He  was  hastily  tried,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged 
and  quartered  within  a  few  hours,  near  the  city  cross  in  the 
High  Street.  Though  unable  to  stand  without  the  support  of 
two  men,  he  maintained  his  fortitude  to  the  last,  and  under 
the  gibbet  raised  his  feeble  voice  against  Popery  and  tyranny 
with  such  vehemence  that  the  officers  ordered  the  drums  to 
strike  up  lest  the  people  should  hear  him.  He  was  a  friend, 
he  said,  to  limited  monarchy.  But  he  never  would  believe 
that  Providence  had  sent  a  few  men  into  the  world  ready 
booted  and  spurred  to  ride,  and  millions  ready  saddled  and 
bridled  to  be  ridden.  "  I  desire,"  he  cried,  "  to  bless  and 
magnify  God's  holy  name  for  this,  that  I  stand  here,  not  for 
any  wrong  that  I  have  done,  but  for  adhering  to  his  cause  in 
an  evil  day.  If  every  hair  of  my  head  were  a  man,  in  this 
quarrel  I  would  venture  them  all." 

Both  at  his  trial  and  at  his  execution  he  spoke  of  assassina- 
tion with  the  abhorrence  which  became  a  good  Christian  and 
a  brave  soldier.  He  had  never,  he  protested,  on  the  faith  of 
a  dying  man,  harbored  the  thought  of  committing  suchvillany. 
But  he  frankly  owned  that  in  conversation  with  his  fellow- 
conspirators  he  had  mentioned  his  own  house  as  a  place  where 
the  king  and  the  duke  might  with  advantage  be  attacked,  and 
that  much  had  been  said  on  the  subject,  though  nothing  had 
been  determined.  It  may  at  first  sight  seem  that  this  acknowl 
edgment  is  inconsistent  with  his  declaWttion  that  he  had  alwayf. 
regarded  assassination  with  horror.  But  the  truth  appears  to  be, 
that  he  was  imposed  upon  by  a  distinction  which  deluded  many 
of  his  contemporaries.  Nothing  would  have  induced  him  to 
put  poison  into  the  food  of  the  two  princes,  or  to  poniard  them 
in  their  sleep.  But  to  make  an  unexpected  onset  on  the  troop 
of  life  guards  which  surrounded  the  royal  coach,  to  exchange 
sword  cuts  and  pistol  shots,  and  to  take  the  chance  of  slaying 
or  of  being  slain,  was,  in  his  view,  a  lawful  military  operation. 
Ambuscades  and  surprises  were  among  the  ordinary  incidents 
of  war.  Every  old  soldier,  Cavalier  or  Roundhead,  had  been 
engaged  in  such  enterprises.  If  in  the  skirmish  the  king  should 
fall,  he  would  fall  by  fair  fighting,  and  not  by  murder.  Pro 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.         .  447 

sisely  the  same  reasoning  was  employed,  after  the  revo.ution, 
by  James  himself  and  by  his  most  gallant  and  devoted  fol- 
lowers, to  justify  a  wicked  attempt  on  the  life  of  William  the 
Third.  A  band  of  Jacobites  was  commissioned  to  attack  the 
Prince  of  Orange  in  his  winter  quarters.  The  meaning  latent 
under  this  specious  phrase  was,  that  the  prince's  throat  was  tc 
be  cut  as  he  went  in  his  coach  from  Richmond  to  Kensington. 
It  may  seem  strange  that  such  fallacies,  the  dregs  of  the 
Jesuitical  casuistry,  should  have  had  power  to  seduce  men  of 
heroic  spirit,  both  Whigs  and  Tories,  into  a  crime  on  which 
divine  and  human  laws  have  justly  set  a  peculiar  note  of  in- 
famy. But  no  sophism  is  too  gross  to  delude  minds  distem 
pered  by  party  spirit.* 

Argyle,  who  survived  Rumbold  a  few  hours,  left  a  dying 
testimony  to  the  virtues  of  the  gallant  Englishman.  "  Poor 
Rumbold  was  a  great  support  to  me,  and  a  brave  man,  and 
died  christianly."  t 

Ayloflfe  showed  as  much  contempt  of  death  as  either  Argyle 
or  Rumbold ;  but  his  end  did  not,  like  theirs,  edify  pious 
minds.  Though  political  sympathy  had  drawn  him  towards 
the  Puritans,  he  had  no  religious  sympathy  with  them,  and 
was  indeed  regarded  by  them  as  little  better  than  an  atheist. 
He  belonged  to  that  section  of  the  Whigs  which  sought  for 
models  rather  among  the  patriots  of  Greece  and  Rome  than 
among  the  prophets  and  judges  of  Israel.  He  was  taken 
prisoner,  and  carried  to  Glasgow.  There  he  attempted  to 
destroy  himself  with  a  small  penknife  ;  but,  though  he  gave 
himself  several  wounds,  none  of  them  proved  mortal,  and  he 
had  strength  enough  left  to  bear  a  journey  to  London.  He 

»  Wodrow,  HI.  ix.  10;  "'Western  Martyrology ;  Burnet,  i.  633; 
Fox's  History,  Appendix,  iv.  I  can  find  no  way  except  that  indi- 
cated in  the  text  of  reconciling  Rumbold's  denial  that  he  had  ever 
admitted  into  his  mind  the  thought  of  assassination  with  his  confes- 
sion that  he  had  himself  mentioned  his  own  house  as  a  convenient 
place  for  an  attack  on  the  royal  brothers.  The  distinction  which  I 
suppose  him  to  have  taken  was  taken  by  another  Rye  House  con- 
spirator, who  "was,  like  him,  an  old  soldier  of  the  Commonwealth, 
Captain  Walcot.  On  Walcot's  trial  West,  the  witness  for  the  crown, 
said,  "  Captain,  you  did  agree  to  be  one  of  those  that  were  to  fight 
the  guards."  "What,  then,  was  the  reason,"  asked  Chief  Justice 
Pemberton,  "that  he  would  not  kill  the  king?"  "He  said,"  an- 
swered West,  "  that  it  was  a  base  thing  to  kill  a  naked  man,  and  he 
would  not  do  it." 

Wodrow,  III.  ix.  9. 


448  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

was  brought  before  the  privy  council,  and  interrogated  by  the 
king,  but  had  too  nvuch  elevation  of  mind  to  save  himself  by 
informing  against  others.  A  story  was  current  among  the 
Whigs  that  the  king  said,  "  You  had  better  be  frank  with  me, 
Mr.  Ayloffe.  You  know  that  it  is  in  my  power  to  pardon  you." 
Then,  it  was  rumored,  the  captive  broke  his  sullen  silence, 
and  answered,  "  It  may  be  in  your  power ;  but  it  is  not  in 
your  nature."  He  was  executed  under  his  old  outlawry  be- 
fore the  gate  of  the  Terriple,  and  died  with  stoical  composure.* 

In  the  mean  time  the  vengeance  of  the  conquerors  was  mer- 
cilessly wreaked  on  the  people  of  Argyleshire.  Many  of  the 
Campbells  were  hanged  without  a  trial  by  Athol ;  and  he  was 
with  difficulty  restrained  by  the  privy  council  from  taking 
more  lives.  The  country  to  the  extent  of  thirty  miles  round 
Inv«rary  was  wasted.  Houses  were  burned,  the  stones  of 
mills  broken  to  pieces,  fruit  trees  cut  down,  and  the  very  roots 
seared  with  fire.  The  nets  and  fishing  boats,  the  sole  means 
by  which  many  inhabitants  of  the  coast  subsisted,  were  de- 
stroyed. More  than  three  hundred  rebels  and  malcontents 
were  transported  to  the  colonies.  Many  of  them  were  also 
sentenced  to  mutilation.  On  a  single  day  the  hangman  of 
Edinburgh  cut  off  the  ears  of  thirty-five  prisoners.  Several 
women  were  sent  across  the  Atlantic  after  being  first  branded 
in  the  cheek  with  a  hot  iron.  It  was  even  in  contemplation 
to  obtain  an  act  of  parliament  proscribing  the  name  of  Camp- 
bell, as  the  name  of  Mac  Gregor  had  been  proscribed  eighty 
years  before.t 

Argyle's  expedition  appears  to  have  produced  little  sensa- 
tion in  the  south  of  the  island.  The  tidings  of  his  landing 
reached  London  just  before  the  English  parliament  met.  The 
king  mentioned  the  news  from  the  throne  ;  and  the  Houses 
assured  him  that  they  would  stand  by  him  against  every 
enemy.  Nothing  more  was  required  of  them.  Over  Scot- 
land they  had  no  authority ;  and  a  war  of  which  the  theatre 
was  so  distant,  and  of  which  the  event  might,"  almost  from 
the  first,  be  easily  foreseen,  excited  only  a  languid  interest  in 
London. 

*  Wade's  Narrative,  Harl.  MS.  6845 ;  Burnet,  i.  634 ;  Citters's 
Despatch  of  *£±^,  1685 ;  Luttrell's  Diary  of  the  same  date. 

t  "Wodrow,  in.  ix.  4,  and  HI.  ix.  10.  Wodrow  gives  from  the 
Acts  of  Council  the  names  of  all  the  prisoners  who  were  transported, 
mutilated,  or  branded. 


HISTCRY    OF    ENGLAND.  449 

But,  a  week  before  the  final  dispersion  of  Argyle'*  army 
England  was  agitated  by  the  news  that  a  more  formidable 
invader  had  landed  on  her  own  shores.  It  had  been  agreed 
among  the  refugees  that  Monmouth  should  sail  from  Holland 
six  days  after  the  departure  of  the  Scots.  He  had  deferrea 
his  expedition  a  short  time,  probably  in  the  hope  that  most  of 
the  troops  in  the  south  of  the  island  would  be  moved  to  the  north 
as  soon  as  war  broke  out  in  the  Highlands,  and  that  he  should 
find  no  force  ready  to  oppose  him.  When  at  length  he  was 
desirous  to  proceed,  the  wind  had  become  adverse  and  violent. 

While  his  small  fleet  lay  tossing  in  the  Texel,  a  contest  was 
going  on  among  the  Dutch  authorities.  The  States  General 
and  the  Prince  of  Orange  were  on  one  side,  the  magistracy 
and  admiralty  of  Amsterdam  on  the  other. 

Skelton  had  delivered  to  the  States  General  a  list  of  the 
refugees  whose  residence  in  the  United  Provinces  caused 
uneasiness  to  his  master.  The  States  General,  anxious  to 
grant  every  reasonable  request  which  James  could  make,  sent 
copies  of  the  list  to  the  provincial  authorities.  The  provincial 
authorities  sent  copies  to  the  municipal  authorities.  The  magis- 
trates of  all  the  towns  were  directed  to  take  such  measures  as 
might  prevent  the  proscribed  Whigs  from  molesting  the  Eng- 
lish government.  In  general  those  directions  were  obeyed.  At 
Rotterdam  in  particular,  where  the  influence  of  William  was 
all  powerful,  such  activity  was  shown  as  called  forth  warm 
acknowledgments  from  James.  But  Amsterdam  was  the  chief 
seat  of  the  emigrants;  and  the  governing  body  tf  Amsterdam 
would  see  nothing,  hear  nothing,  know  of  nothing.  The  high 
bailifT  of  the  city,  who  was  himself  in  daily  communication 
with  Ferguson,  reported  to  the  Hague  that  he  did  not  know 
where  to  find  a  single  one  of  the  refugees ;  and  with  this 
excuse  the  federal  government  was  forced  to  be  content. 
The  truth  was,  that  the  English  exiles  were  as  well  known  at 
Amsterdam  and  as  much  stared  at  in  the  streets  as  if  they  had 
been  Chinese.* 

*  Skelton's  letter  is  dated  the  ^th  of  May,  1686.  It  will  be  found, 
together  -with  a  letter  of  the  Schout  or  High  Bailiff  of  Amsterdam, 
in  a  little  volume  published  a  few  months  later,  and  entitled  "  His- 
toire  des  Evenemens  Tragiques  d' Angle terre."  The  documents  in- 
serted in  that  work  are,  as  far  as  I  have  examined  them,  given  exactly 
from  the  Dutch  archives,  except  that  Skelton's  French,  which  was 
not  the  purest,  is  slightly  corrected.  See  also  Grey's  Narrative. 

Goodenough,  on  his  examination  after  the  battle  of  Sedgeinoor,  said, 
38* 


460  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

A  few  days  later,  Skelton  received  orders  from  his  court  to 
icquest  that,  in  consequence  of  the  dangers  which  threatened 
his  master's  throne,  the  three  Scotch  regiments  in  the  service 
of  the  United  Provinces  might  be  sent  to  Great  Britain  without 
delay.  He  applied  to  the  Prince  of  Orange ;  and  the  prince 
undertook  to  manage  the  matter,  but  predicted  that  Amster- 
dam would  raise  some  difficulty.  The  prediction  proved  cor- 
rect. The  deputies  of  Amsterdam  refused  to  consent,  and 
succeeded  in  causing  some  delay.  But  the  question  was  not 
one  of  those  on  which,  by  the  constitution  of  the  republic,  a 
single  city  could  prevent  the  wish  of  the  majority  from  being 
carried  into  effect.  The  influence  of  William  prevailed  ;  and 
the  troops  were  embarked  with  great  expedition.* 

Skelton  was  at  the  same  time  exerting  himself,  not  indeed 
very  judiciously  or  temperately,  to  stop  the  ships  which  the 
English  refugees  had  fitted  out.  He  exp&stulated  in  warm 
terms  with  the  admiralty  of  Amsterdam.  The  negligence  of 
that  board,  he  said,  had  already  enabled  one  band  of  rebels  to 
invade  Britain.  For  a  second  error  of  the  same  kind  there 
could  be  no  excuse.  He  peremptorily  demanded  that  a  large 
vessel,  named  the  Helderenbergh,  might  be  detained.  It  was 
pretended  that  this  vessel  was  bound  for  the  Canaries.  But, 
in  truth,  she  had  been  freighted  by  Monmouth,  carried  twenty- 
six  guns,  and  was  loaded  with  arms  and  ammunition.  The 
admiralty  of  Amsterdam  replied  that  the  liberty  of  trade  and 
navigation  was  not  to  be  restrained  for  light  reasons,  and  that 
the  Helderenbergh  could  not  be  stopped  without  an  order  from 
the  States  General.  Skelton,  whose  uniform  practice  seems 
to  have  been  to  begin  at  the  wrong  end,  now  had  recourse  to 
the  States  General.  The  States  General  gave  the  necessary 
orders.  Then  the  admiralty  of  Amsterdam  pretended  that 

"  The  Sellout  of  Amsterdam  was  a  particular  friend  to  his  last  de- 
sign." Lansdowne  MS.  1152. 

It  is.  not  worth  while  to  refute  those  writers  who  represent  the 
Prince  of  Orange  as  an  accomplice  in  Monmouth's  enterprise.  The 
circumstance  on  which  they  chiefly  rely  is,  that  the  authorities  of 
Ajnsterdam  took  no  effectual  steps  for  preventing  the  expedition  from 
mailing.  This  circumstance  is  in  truth  the  strongest  proof  that  the 
expedition  was  not  favored  by  William.  No  person,  not  profoundly 
ignorant  of  the  institutions  and  politics  of  Holland,  would  hold  the 
Stadtholder  answerable  for  the  proceedings  of  the  heads  of  the  Loe- 
vestcin  party. 

*  Avaux  Neg.  June  J?,  T\,  ££,  1685 ;  Letter  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange  to  Lord  Rochester,  June  9,  1685. 


H1STUKY    Of    ENGLAND.  451 

there  was  not  a  sufficient  naval  force  in  the  Texel  to  seize  so 
large  a  ship  as  the  Helderenbergh,  and  suffered  Monmouth  to 
sail  unmolested.* 

The  weather  was  bad ;  the  voyage  was  long ;  and  several 
English  men  of  war  were  cruising  in  the  Channel.  But  Mon- 
mouth escaped  both  the  sea  and  the  enemy.  As  he  passed 
by  the  cliffs  of  Dorsetshire,  it  was  thought  desirable  to  send  a 
boat  to  the  beach  with  one  of  the  refugees  named  Thomas 
Dare.  This  man,  though  of  low  mind  and  manners,  had  great 
influence  at  Taunton.  He  was  directed  to  hasten  thither 
across  the  country,  and  to  apprize  his  friends  that  Monmouth 
would  soon  be  on  English  ground.t 

On  the  morning  of  the  eleventh  of  June,  the  Helderenbergh, 
accompanied  by  two  smaller  vessels,  appeared  off  the  port  of 
Lyme.  That  town  is  a  small  knot  of  steep  and  narrow 
alleys,  lying  on  a  coast  wild,  rocky,  and  beaten  by  a  stormy 
sea.  The  place  was  then  chiefly  remarkable  for  a  pier  which, 
in  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets,  had  been  constructed  of  stones, 
unhewn  and  uncemented.  This  ancient  work,  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Cob,  enclosed  the  only  haven  where,  in  a  space 
of  many  miles,  the  fisherman  could  take  refuge  from  the  tem- 
pests of  the  Channel. 

The  appearance  of  the  three  ships,  foreign  built  and  with- 
out colors,  perplexed  the  inhabitants  of  Lyme  :  and  the  unea- 
siness increased  when  it  was  found  that  the  custom-house 
officers,  who  had  gone  on  board  according  to  usage,  did  not 
return.  The  town's  people  repaired  to  the  cliffs  and  gazed 
long  and  anxiously,  but  could  find  no  solution  of  the  mystery. 
At  length  seven  boats  put  off  from  the  largest  of  the  strange 
vessels,  and  rowed  to  the  shore.  From  these  boats  landed 
about  eighty  men,  well  armed  and  appointed.  Among  them 
were  Monmouth,  Grey,  Fletcher,  Ferguson,  Wade,  and  An- 
thony Buyse,  an  officer  who  had  been  in  the  service  of  the 
elector  of  Brandenburg.  J 

Monmouth  commanded  silence,  kneeled  down  on  the  shore, 
thanked  God  for  having  preserved  the  friends  of  liberty  and 

*  Citters,  June  T9g ;  June  ££ ,  1685.  The  correspondence  of  Skel- 
ton  with  the  States  General  and  witl  the  Admiralty  of  Amsterdam 
is  in  the  archives  at  the  Hague.  Scjne  pieces  will  be  found  in  the 
Evenemens  Tragiques  d'Angleterre,  See  also  Burnet,  i.  640. 

f  Wade's  Confession  in  the  Ilardwicke  Papers  ;  Harl.  MS.  6845. 

J  See  Buyse's  evidence  against  Monmouth  and  Fletcher  in  the 
Collection  of  State  Trials. 


452  BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

pure  religion  from  the  perils  of  the  sea,  and  implored  the 
divine  blessing  on  what  was  yet  to  be  done  by  land.  He 
then  drew  his  sword,  and  led  his  men  over  the  cliffs  into  the 
town. 

As  soon  as  it  was  known  under  what  leader  and  for  what 
purpose  the  expedition  came,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  populace 
burst  through  all  restraints.  The  little  town  was  in  an  uproar 
with  men  running  to  and  fro,  and  shouting,  "  A  Monmouth ! 
a  Monmouth  !  the  Protestant  religion  !  "  Meanwhile  the  en- 
sign of  the  adventurers,  a  blue  flag,  was  set  up  in  the  market 
place.  The  military  stores  were  deposited  in  the  town  hall ; 
and  a  declaration  setting  forth  the  objects  of  the  expedition 
was  read  from  the  Cross.* 

This  declaration,  the  masterpiece  of  Ferguson's  genius,  was 
not  a  grave  manifesto  such  as  ought  to  be  put  forth  by  a  leader 
drawing  the  sword  for  a  great  public  cause,  but  a  libel  of  the 
lowest  class,  both  in  sentiment  and  language.t  It  contained, 
undoubtedly,  many  just  charges  against  the  government.  But 
these  charges  were  set  forth  in  the  prolix  and  inflated  style  of 
a  bad  pamphlet ;  and  mingled  with  them  were  other  charges 
of  which  the  whole  disgrace  falls  on  those  who  made  them. 
The  Duke  of  York,  it  was  positively  affirmed,  had  burned 
down  London,  had  strangled  Godfrey,  had  cut  the  throat  of 
Essex,  and  had  poisoned  the  late  king.  On  account  of  those 
villanous  and  unnatural  crimes,  but  chiefly  of  that  execrable 
fact,  the  late  horrible  and  barbarous  parricide,  —  such  was  the 
copiousness  and  such  the  felicity  of  Ferguson's  diction, — 
James  was  declared  a  mortal  and  bloody  enemy,  a  tyrant,  a 
•murderer,  and  a  usurper.  No  treaty  should  be  made  with 
him.  The  sword  should  not  be  sheathed  till  he  had  been 
brought  to  condign  punishment  as  a  traitor.  The  government 
should  be  settled  on  principles  favorable  to  liberty.  All  Prot- 
estant sects  should  be  tolerated.  The  forfeited  charters  should 
be  restored.  Parliaments  should  be  held  annually,  and  should 
no  longer  be  prorogued  or  dissolved  by  royal  caprice.  The 
only  standing  force  should  be  the  militia.  The  militia  should 
be  commanded  by  the  sheriffs ;  and  the  sheriffs  should  be 
chosen  by  the  freeholders.  Finally  Monmouth  declared  that 

*  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  June  13,  1685  ;  Harl.  MS. 
6845;  Lansdowne  MS.  1152.  • 

t  Burnet,  i.  641 ;  Goodenough's  confession  in  Lansdowne  MS, 
1162.  Copies  of  the  declaration,  as  originally  printed,  are  very  rare ; 
but  there  is  one  at  the  British  Museum. 


BISTORT    Or    ENGLAND.  453 

he  could  prove  himself  to  have  been  born  in  lawful  wedlock, 
and  to  be,  by  right  of  blood,  king  of  England,  but  that,  for 
the  present,  he  waived  his  claims,  that  he  would  leave  them  to 
the  judgment  of  a  free  parliament,  and  that,  in  the  mean  time, 
he  desired  to  be  considered  only  as  the  captain-general  of  the 
English  Protestants  in  arms  against  tyranny  and  Popery. 

Disgraceful  as  this  manifesto  was  to  those,  who  put  it  forth, 
it  was  not  unskilfully  framed  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating 
the  passions  of  the  vulgar.  In  the  west  the  effect  was  great. 
The  gentry  and  clergy  of  that  part  of  England  were  indeed, 
with  few  exceptions,  Tories.  But  the  yeomen,  the  traders  of 
the  towns,  the  peasants,  and  the  artisans,  were  generally 
animated  by  the  old  Roundhead  spirit.  Many  of  them  were 
dissenters,  and  had  been  goaded  by  petty  persecution  into  a 
temper  fit  for  desperate  enterprise.  The  great  mass  of  the 
population  abhorred  Popery  and  adored  Monmouth.  He  was 
no  stranger  to  them.  His  progress  through  Somersetshire 
and  Devonshire,  in  the  summer  of  1680,  was  still  fresh  in  the 
memory  of  all  men.  He  was  on  that  occasion  sumptuously 
entertained  by  Thomas  Thynne  at  Longleat  Hall,  then,  and 
perhaps  still,  the  most  magnificent  country  house  in  England. 
From  Longleat  to  Exeter  the  hedges  were  lined  with  shouting 
spectators.  The  roads  were  strewn  with  boughs  and  flowers. 
The  multitude,  in  their  eagerness  to  see  and  touch  their  favor- 
ite, broke  down  the  palings  of  parks,  and  besieged  the  man- 
sions where  he  was  feasted.  When  he  reached  Chard,  his 
escort  consisted  of  five  thousand  horsemen.  At  Exeter  all 
Devonshire  had  been  gathered  together  to  welcome  him.  One 
striking  part  of  the  show  was  &  company  of  nine  hundred 
young  men  who,  clad  in  a  white  uniform,  marched  before  him 
into  the  city.*  The  turn  of  fortune  which  had  alienated  the 
gentry  from  his  cause  had  produced  no  effect  on  the  common 
people.  To  them  he  was  still  the  good  duke,  the  Protestant 
duke,  the  rightful  heir,  whom  a  vile  conspiracy  kept  out  of  his 
own.  They  came  to  his  standard  in  crowds.  All  the  clerks 
whom  he  could  employ  were  too  few  to  take  down  the  names 
of  the  recruits.  Before  he  had  been  twenty-four  hours  on 
English  ground  he  was  at  the  head  of  fifteen  hundred  men. 
Dare  arrived  from  Taunton  with  forty  horsemen  of  no  very 
martial  appearance,  and  brought  encouraging  intelligence  as 

*  Historical  Account  of  the  Life  and  magnanimous  Actions  of  the 
most  illustrious  Protestant  Prince  James,  Duke  of  Monmouth,  1683. 


454  HISfOAY    0*    ENGLArfD. 

to  the  state  of  public  feeling  in  Somersetshire.     As  yet  all 
seemed  to  promise  well.* 

But  a  force  was  collecting  at  Bridport  to  oppose  the  insur- 
gents. On  the  thirteenth  of  June  the  red  regiment  of  Dorset- 
shire militia  came  pouring  into  that  town.  The  Somersetshire, 
or  yellow  regiment,  of  which  Sir  William  Portrrran,  a  Tory 
gentleman  of  great  note,  was  colonel,  was  expected  to  arrive 
on  the  following  day.t  The  duke  determined  to  strike  an 
immediate  blow.  A  detachment  of  his  troops  was  preparing 
to  march  to  Bridport,  when  a  disastrous  event  threw  the  whole 
camp  into  confusion. 

Fletcher  of  Saltoun  had  been  appointed  to  command  the 
cavalry  under  Grey.  Fletcher  was  ill  mounted ;  and,  indeed 
there  were  few  chargers  in  the  camp  which  had  not  been 
taken  from  the  plough.  When  he  was  ordered  to  Bridpdrt,  he 
thought  that  the  exigency  of  the  case  warranted  him  in  bor- 
rowing, without  asking  permission,  a  fine  horse  belonging  to 
Dare.  Dare  resented  this  liberty,  and  assailed  Fletcher  with 
gross  abuse.  Fletcher  kept  his  temper  better  than  any  who 
knew  him  expected.  At  last  Dare,  presuming  on  the  patience 
with  which  his  insolence  was  endured,  ventured  to  shake  a 
switch  at  the  high-born  and  high-spirited  Scot.  Fletcher's 
blood  boiled.  He  drew  a  pistol  and  shot  Dare  dead.  Such 
sudden  and  violent  revenge  would  not  have  been  thought 
strange  in  Scotland,  where  the  law  had  always  been  weak, 
where  he  who  did  not  right  himself  by  the  strong  hand  was 
not  likely  to  be  righted  at  all,  and  where,  consequently,  human 
life  was  held  almost  as  cheap  as  irt  the  worst-governed  prov- 
inces of  Italy.  But  the  people  of  the  -  southern  part  of  the 
island  were  not  accustomed  to  see  deadly  weapons  used  and 
blood  spilled  on  account  of  a  rude  word  or  gesture,  except  in 
duel  between  gentlemen  with  equal  arms.  There  was  a  gen- 
eral cry  for  vengeance  on  the  foreigner  who  had  murdered  an 
Englishman.  Monmouth  could  not  resist  the  clamor.  Fletcher, 
who,  when  his  first  burst  of  rage  had  spent  itself,  was  over- 
whelmed with  remorse  and  sorrow,  took  refuge  on  board  of 
the  Helderenbergh,  escaped  to  the  Continent,  and  repaired  to 
Hungary,  where  he  fought  bravely  against  the  common  enemy 
of  Christendom.^ 

»  Wade's  Confession,  Hardwicke  Papere ;  Axe  Papers ;  Harl.  MS. 
^846. 

t  Harl.  Mg>.  6845. 

t  Buyse's  evidence  in  the  Collection  of  State  TH*!*;  Buinet,  L 
e*2 ;  Ferguson's  Mft  quoted  by  EachanL 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  455 

Situated  as  the  insurgents  were,  the  loss  of  a  man  of  parts 
and  energy,  who  knew  something  of  war,  was  not  easily  to 
be  repaired.  Early  on  the  morning  of  the  following  day,  the 
fourteenth  of  June,  Grey,  accompanied  by  Wade,  marched 
with  about  five  hundred  men  to  attack  Bridport.  A  confused 
and  indecisive  action  took  place,  such  as  was  to  be  expected 
when  two  bands  of  ploughmen,  officered  by  country  gentle- 
men and  barristers,  were  opposed  to  each  other.  For  a  time 
Monmouth's  men  drove  the  militia  before  them.  Then  the 
militia  made  a  stand,  and  Monmouth's  men  retreated  in  some 
confusion.  Grey  and  his  cavalry  never  stopped  till  they  were 
safe  at  Lyme  again.  But  Wade  rallied  the  infantry,  and 
brought  them  off  in  good  order.* 

There  was  a  violent  outcry  against  Grey ;  and  some  of  the 
adventurers  pressed  Monmouth  to  take  a  severe  course.  Mon- 
mouth,  however,  would  not  listen  to  this  advice.  His  lenity 
has  been  attributed  by  some  writers  to  his  good  nature,  which 
undoubtedly  often* amounted  to  weakness.  Others  have  sup- 
posed that  he  was  unwilling  to  deal  harshly  with  the  only  peer 
who  served  in  his  army.  Jt  is  probable,  however,  that  the 
duke,  who,  though  not  a  general  of  the  highest  order,  under- 
stood war  very  much  better  than  the  preachers  and  lawyers 
who  were  always  obtruding  their  advice  on  him,  made  allow 
ances  which  people  altogether  inexpert  in  military  affairs 
never  thought  of  making.  In  justice  to  a  man  who  has  had 
few  defenders,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  task  which, 
throughout  this  campaign,  was  assigned  to  Grey,  was  one 
which,  if  he  had  been  the  boldest  and  most  skilful  of  soldiers, 
he  could  scarcely  have,  performed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  gain 
credit.  He  was  at  the  head  of  the  cavalry.  It  is  notorious 
that  a  horse  soldier  requires  a  longer  training  than  a  foot 
soldier,  and  that  the  war  horse  requires  a  longer  training  than 
his  rider.  Something  may  be  done  with  a  raw  infantry 
which  has  enthusiasm  and  animal  courage ;  but  nothing  can 
be  more  helpless  than  a  raw  cavalry,  consisting  of  yeomen 
and  tradesmen  mounted  on  cart  horses  and  post  horses ;  an } 
such  was  the  cavalry  which  Grey  commanded.  The  wondei 
is,  not  that  his  men  did  not  stand  fire  with  resolution,  not  tha- 
they  did  not  use  their  weapons  witn  vigor,  but  that  they  wert 
able  to  keep  their  seats. 

Still  recruits  came  in  by  hundreds.     Arming  and  drilling 

. . «_ 

*  London  Gazette,  Jun*  *  1685 ;  Wade's  Confession,  Hardwicka 
Papers. 


456  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

went  on  all  day.  Meantime  the  news  of  the  insurrection  had 
spread  fast  and  wide.  On  the  evening  on  which  the  duke 
landed,  Gregory  Alfoid,  Mayor  of  Lyme,  a  zealous  Tory, 
and  a  most  bitter  persecutor  of  Nonconformists,  sent  off  his 
servants  to  give  the  alarm  to  the  gentry  of  Somersetshire  and 
Dorsetshire,  and  himself  took  horse  for  the  west.  Late  at 
night  he  stopped  at  Honiton,  and  thence  despatched  a  few 
hurried  lines  to  London  with  the  ill  tidings.*  He  then  pushed 
on  to  Exeter,  where  he  found  Christopher  Monk,  Duke  of 
Albemarle.  This  nobleman,  the  son  and  heir  of  George 
Monk,  the  restorer  of  the  Stuarts,  was  lord  lieutenant  of 
Devonshire,  and  was  then  holding  a  muster  of  militia.  Four 
thousand  men  of  the  trainbands  were  actually  assembled 
under  his  command.  He  seems  to  have  thought  that,  with 
this  force,  he  should  be  able  at  once  to  crush  the  rebellion. 
He  therefore  marched  towards  Lyme. 

But  when,  on  the  afternoon  of  Monday  the  fifteenth  of 
June,  he  reached  Axminster,  he  found  the  insurgents  drawn 
up  there  to  encounter  him.  They  presented  a  resolute  front. 
Four  field  pieces  were  pointed  against  the  royal  troops.  The 
thick  hedges  which  on  each  side  overhung  the  narrow  lanes, 
were  lined  with  musketeers.  Albemarle,  however,  was  less 
alarmed  by  the  preparations  of  the  enemy  that  by  the  spirit 
which  appeared  in  his  own  ranks.  Such  was  Monmouth's 
popularity  among  the  common  people  of  Devonshire  that, 
if  once  the  trainbands  had  caught  sight  of  his  well-known 
face  and  figure,  they  would  probably  have  gone  over  to  him 
in  a  body. 

Albemarle,  therefore,  though  he  had  a  great  superiority 
of  force,  thought  it  advisable  to  retreat.  The  retreat  soon 
became  a  rout.  The  whole  country  was  strewn  with  the 
arms  and  uniforms  which  the  fugitives  had  thrown  away ; 
and,  had  Monmouth  urged  the  pursuit  with  vigor,  he  would 
probably  have  taken  Exeter  without  a  blow.  But  he  was 
satisfied  with  the  advantage  which  he  .had  gained,  and  thought 
it  desirable  that  his  recruits  should  be  better  trained  before 
they  were  employed  in  any  hazardous  service.  He  therefore 
inarched  towards  Taunton,  where  he  arrived  on  the  eighteenth 
of  June,  exactly  a  week  after  his  landing.t 

*  Lords'  Journals,  June  13,  1685. 

t  Wade's  Confession;  Ferguson  MS.;  Axe  Papers,  Harl.  MS. 
6845  ;  Oldmixon,  701,  702.  Oldmixon,  wl  o  was  then  a  boy,  lived 
very  near  the  scene  of  these  events. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  457 

The  court  and  the  parliament  had  been  greatly  moved  by 
the  news  from  the  west.  At  five  in  the  morning  of  Saturday 
the  thirteenth  of  June,  the  king  had  received  the  letter  which 
the  mayor  of  Lyme  had  despatched  from  Honiton.  The 
privy  council  was  instantly  called  together.  Orders  were 
given  that  the  strength  of  every  company  of  infantry  and 
of  every  troop  of  cavalry  should  be  increased.  Commissions 
were  issued  for  the  levying  of  new  regiments.  Alford's 
c  jmmunication  was  laid  before  the  Lords  ;  and  its  substance 
was  communicated  to  the  Commons  by  a  message.  The  Com- 
mons examined  the  couriers  who  had  arrived  from  the  west, 
and  instantly  ordered  a  bill  to  be  brought  in  for  attainting  Mori- 
mouth  of  high  treason.  Addresses  were  voted  assuring  the 
king  that  both  his  peers  and  his  people  were  determined  to 
stand  by  him  with  life  and  fortune  against  all  his  enemies. 
At  the  next  meeting  of  the  houses  they  ordered  the  declara- 
tion of  the  rebels  to  be  burned  by  the  hangman,  and  passed 
the  bill  of  attainder  through  all  its  stages.  That  bill  received 
the  royal  assent  on  the  same  day ;  and  a  reward  of  five 
thousand  pounds  was  promised  for  the  apprehension  of  Mon- 
mouth.*  * 

The  fact  that  Monmouth  was  in  arms  against  the  govern- 
ment was  so  notorious  that  the  bill  of  attainder  became  a 
law  with  only  a  faint  show  of  opposition  from  one  or  two 
peers,  and  has  seldom  been  severely  censured  even  by  Whig 
historians.  Yet,  when  we  consider  how  important  it  is  that 
legislative  and  judicial  functions  should  be  kept  distinct,  how 
important  it  is  that  common  fame,  however  strong  and  gen- 
eral, should  not  be  received  as  a  legal  proof  of  guilt,  how 
important  it  is  to  maintain  the  rule  that  no  man  shall  be 
condemned  to  death  without  an  opportunity  of  defending 
himself,  and  how  easily  and  speedily  breaches  in  great  prin- 
ciples, when  once  made,  are  widened,  we  shall  probably  be 
disposed  to  think  that  the  course  taken  by  the  parliament  was 
opsn  to  some  objection.  Neither  house  had  before  it  any 
thing  which  even  so  corrupt  a  judge  as  Jeffreys  could  have 
directed  a  jury  to  consider  as  proof  of  Monmouth's  crime. 
The  messengers  examined  by  the  Commons  were  not  on 
oath,  and  might  therefore  have  related  mere  fictions  without 
incurring  the  penalties  of  perjury.  The  Lords,  who  migh 

*  London  Gazette,  June  18,  1685  ;  Lords'  and  Commons'  Journals, 
June  13  and  15  ;  Dutch  Despatch,  June  ££. 
VOL.  i.  39 


458  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

have  administered  an  oath,  appear  not  to  have  examined  any 
witness,  and  to  have  had  no  evidence  before  them  except 
the  letter  of  the  mayor  of  Lyme,  which,  in  the  eye  of  the 
law,  was  no  evidence  at  all.  Extreme  danger,  it  is  true, 
justifies  extreme  remedies.  But  the  act  of  attainder  was  a 
remedy  which  could  not  operate  till  all  danger  was  over,  and 
which  would  become  superfluous  at  the  very  moment  at 
which  it  ceased  to  be  null.  While  Monmouth  was  in  arms 
it  was  impossible  to  execute  him.  If  he  should  be  vanquished 
and  taken,  there  would  be  no  hazard  and  no  difficulty  in 
trying  him.  It  was  afterwards  remembered  as  a  curious 
circumstance  that,  among  the  zealous  Tories  who  went  up 
with  the  bill  from  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  bar  of  the 
Lords,  was  Sir  John  Fenwick,  member  for  Northumberland.* 
This  gentleman,  a  few  years  later,  had  occasion  to  reconsider 
the  whole  subject,  and  then  came  to  the  conclusion  that  acts 
of  attainder  are  altogether  unjustifiable. 

The  parliament  gave  other  proofs  of  loyalty  in  this  hour 
of  peril.  The  Commons  authorized  the  king  to  raise  an 
extraordinary  sum  of  four  hundred  thousand  pounds  for  his 
present  necessities,  and,  that  he  might  have  no  difficulty  in 
finding  the  money,  proceeded  to  devise  new  imposts.  The 
scheme  of  taxing  houses  lately  built  in  the  capital  was  revived 
and  strenuously  supported  by  the  country  gentlemen.  Il 
was  resolved,  not  only  that  such  houses  should  be  taxed,  but 
that  a  bill  should  be  brought  in  prohibiting  the  laying  of  any 
new  foundations  within  the  bills  of  mortality.  The  resolu- 
tion, however,  was  not  carried  into  effect.  Powerful  men  who 
had  land  in  the  suburbs,  and  who  hoped  to  see  new  streets 
and  squares  rise  on  their  estates,  exerted  all  their  influence 
against  the  project.  It  was  found  that  to  adjust  the  details 
would  be  a  work  of  time  ;  and  the  king's  wants  were  so 
pressing  that  he  thought  it  necessary  to  quicken  the  move- 
ments of  the  House  by  a  gentle  exhortation  to  speed.  The 
plan  of  taxing  buildings  was  therefore  relinquished  ;  and  new 
duties  were  imposed  for  a  term  pf  five  years  on  foreign 
silks,  linens,  and  spirits. t 

The  Tories  of  the  Lower  House  proceeded  to  introduce 


*  Oldmixon  is  wrong  in  saying  that  Fenwick  carried  up  the  bilL 
It  was  carried  up,  as  appears  from  the  Journals,  by  Lord  Ancram. 

T  Commons'  Journals  of  June  17,  18,  and  19,  1685;  Reresby*! 
Memoirs, 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  459 

what  they  called  a  bill  for  the  preservation  of  the  king's  per- 
son and  government.  They  proposed  that  it  should  be  high 
treason  to  say  that  Monmouth  was  legitimate,  to  utter  any  words 
tending  to  bring  the  person  or  government  of  the  sovereign 
into  hatred  or  contempt,  or  to  make  any  motion  in  parliament 
for  changing  the  order  of  succession.  Some  of  these  provisions 
excited  general  disgust  and  alarm.  The  Whigs,  few  and  weak 
as  they  were,  attempted  to  rally,  and  found  themselves  ree'n- 
forced  by  a  considerable  number  of  moderate  and  sensible  Cav- 
aliers. Words,  it  was  said,  may  easily  be  misunderstood  by  an 
honest  man.  They  may  easily  be  misconstrued  by  a  knave. 
What  was  spoken  metaphorically  may  be  apprehended  lit- 
erally. What  was  spoken  ludicrously  may  be  apprehended 
seriously.  A  particle,  a  tense,  a  mood,  an  emphasis,  may 
make  the  whole  difference  between  guilt  and  innocence. 
The  Savior  of  mankind  himself,  in  whose  blameless  life 
malice  could  find  no  .act  to  impeach,  had  been  called  in 
question  for  words  spoken.  False  witnesses  had  suppressed 
a  syllable  which  would  have  made  it  clear  that  those  words 
were  figurative,  and  had  thus  furnished  the  Sanhedrim  with  a 
pretext  under  which  the  foulest  of  all  judicial  murders  had 
been  perpetrated.  With  such  an  example  on  record,  who 
could  affirm  that,  if  mere  talk  were  made  a  substantive  treason, 
the  most  loyal  subject  would  be  safe  ?  These  arguments 
produced  so  great  an  effect  that  in  the  committee^  amendments 
were  introduced  which  greatly  mitigated  the  severity  of  the 
bill.  But  the  clause  which  made  it  high  treason  in  a  member 
of  parliament  to  propose  the  exclusion  of  a  prince  of  the 
blood  from  the  throne  seems  to  have  raised  no  debate,  and 
was  retained.  It  was  indeed  altogether  unimportant,  except  as 
a  proof  of  the  ignorance  and  inexperience  of  the  hot-headed 
royalists  who  thronged  the  House  of  Commons.  Had  they 
learned  the  first  rudiments  of  legislation,  they  would  have  seen 
that  the  enactment  to  which  they  attached  so  much  value  would 
be  superfluous  while  the  parliament  was  disposed  to  maintain 
the  order  of  succession,  and  would  be  repealed  as  soon 
as  there  was  a  parliament  bent  on  changing  the  order  of 
succession.* 

*  Commons'  Journals,  June  19,  29,  1685;  Lord  Lonsdale's  Me- 
moirs, 8,  9  ;  Burnet,  i.  639.  The  bill,  as  amended  by  the  committee, 
•will  be  found  in  Mr.  Fox's  historical  work,  Appendix,  iii.  If  Burnet's 
account  be  correct,  the  offences  which,  by  the  amended  bill,  were 
made  punishable  only  with  civil  incapacities,  were,  by  the  original 
bilK  mad'e  capital. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  bill,  as  amended,  was  passed  and  carried  up  to  the 
Lords,  but  did  not  become  law.  The  kipg  had  obtained  from 
the  parliament  all  the  pecuniary  assistance  that  he  could 
expect ;  and  he  conceived  that,  while  rebellion  was  actually 
raging,  the  loyal  nobility  and  gentry  would  be  of  more  use  in 
their  counties  than  at  Westminster.  He  therefore  hurried 
their  deliberations  to  a  close,  and,  on  the  second  of  July, 
dismissed  them.  The  Houses  were  not  prorogued,  but  only 
adjourned,  in  order  that  when  they  should  reassemble,  they 
might  take  up  their  business  in  the  exact  state  in  which  they 
had  left  it.* 

While  the  parliament  was  devising  sharp  laws  against  Mon- 
mouth  and  his  partisans,  he  found  at  Taunton  a  reception 
which  might  well  encourage  him  to  hope  that  his  enterprise 
would  have  a  prosperous  issue.  Taunton,  like  most  other 
towns  in  the  south  of  England,  was,  in  that  age,  more  impor- 
tant than  at  present.  Those  towns  have  not  indeed  declined. 
On  the  contrary  they  are,  with  very  few  exceptions,  larger 
and  richer,  better  built  and  better  peopled,  than  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  But,  though  they  have  positively  advanced, 
they  have  relatively  gone  back.  They  have  been  far  out- 
stripped in  wealth  and  population  by  the  great  manufacturing 
and  commercial  cities  of  the  north,  cities  which,  in  the  time 
of  the  Stuarts,  were  but  beginning  to  be  known  as  seats  of 
industry.  When  Monmouth  marched  into  Taunton  it  was  an 
eminently  prosperous  place.  Its  markets  were  plentifully 
supplied.  It  was  a  celebrated  seat  of  the  woollen  manufac- 
ture. The  people  boasted  that  they  lived  in  a  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey.  Nor  was  this  language  held  only  by 
partial  natives ;  for  every  stranger  who  climbed-  the  graceful 
tower  of  St.  Mary  Magdalene  owned  that  he  saw  beneath 
him  the  most  fertile  of  English  valleys.  It  was  a  country 
rich  with  orchards  and  green  pastures,  among  which  were 
scattered,  in  gay  abundance,  manor  houses,  cottages,  and 
village  spires.  The  townsmen  had  long  leaned  towards 
Presbyterian  divinity  and  Whig  politics.  In  the  great  civil 
war  Taunton  had,  through  all  vicissitudes,  adhered  to  the 
parliament,  had  been  twice  closely  besieged  by  Goring,  and 
had  been  twice  defended  with  heroic  valor  by  Robert  Blake, 
afterwards  the  renowned  admiral  of  the  Commonwealth. 
Whole  s'reets  had  been  burned  dowr  by  the  mortars  and 

•  Lords'  and  Commons'  Journals,  July  2,  1686. 


HISTORY    CF    fcNGLAND.  461 

grenades  of  the  Cavaliers.  Food  had  been  so  scarce  that  the 
resolute  governor  had  announced  his  intention  to  put  the  gar- 
rison on  rations  of  horse  flesh.  But  the  spirit  of  the  town 
had  never  been  subdued  either  by  fire  or  by  hunger.* 

The  Restoration  had  produced  no  effect  on  the  temper  of 
the  Taunton  men.  They  had  still  continued  to  celebrate  the 
anniversary  of  the  happy  day  on  which  the  siege  laid  to  thei? 
town  by  the  royal  army  had  been  raised  ;  and  their  stubborn 
attachment  to  the  old  cause  had  excited  so  much  fear  and 
resentment  at  Whitehall  that,  by  a  royal  order,  their  moat  had 
been  filled  up,  and  their  wall  demolished  to  the  foundation.t 
The  puritanical  spirit  had  been  kept  up  to  the  height  among 
them  by  the  precepts  and  example  of  one  of  the  most  cele- 
brated of  the  dissenting  clergy,  Joseph  Alleine.  Alleine  was 
the  author  of  a  tract  entitled,  An  Alarm  to  the  Unconverted, 
which  is  still  popular  both  in  England  and  in  America.  From 
the  jail  to  which  he  was  consigned  by  the  victorious  Cavaliers, 
he  addressed  to  his  loving  friends  at  Taunton  many  epistles 
breathing  the  spirit  of  a  truly  heroic  piety.  His  frame  soon 
sank  under  the  effects  of  study,  toil,  and  persecution  ;  but  his 
memory  was  long  cherished  with  exceeding  love  and  rever- 
ence by  those  whom  he  had  exhorted  and  catechizdd.J 

The  children  of  the  men  who,  forty  years  before,  had 
manned  the  ramparts  of  Taunton  against  the  royalists  now 
welcomed  Monmouth  with  transports  of  joy  and  affection. 
Every  door  and  window  was  adorned  with  wreaths  of  flowers. 
No  man  appeared  in  the  streets  without  wearing  in  his  hat  a 
green  bough,  the  badge  of  the  popular  cause.  Damsels  of 
the  best  families  in  the  town  wove  colors  for  the  insurgents. 
One  flag  in  particular  was  embroidered  gorgeously  with  em- 
blems of  royal  dignity,  and  was  offered  to  Monmouth  by  a 
train  of  young  girls.  He  received  the  gift  with  the  winning 
courtesy  which  distinguished  him.  The  lady  who  headed  the 
procession  presented  him  also  with  a  small  Bible  of  great  price. 
'He  took  it  with  a  show  of  reverence.  "  1  come,"  he  said, 
"  to  defend  the  truths  contained  in  this  book,  and  to  seal 
them,  if  it  must  be  so,  with  my  blood."  § 


*  Savage's  edition  of  Toulmin's  History  Of  Taunton. 
t  Sprat's  True  Account  ;  Toulmin's  History  of  Taunton. 
J  Life  and  Death  of  Joseph.  Alleine,  1672  ;  Nonconformists'  Me- 
morial. 

§  HarL  MS,  7006  ;  Oldmixon,  702  ;  Eachard,  HL  7«S- 
39  » 


462  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

But,  while  Mcnmouth  enjoyed  the  applause  of  the  multi- 
tude, he  could  not  but  perceive,  with  concern  and  apprehen- 
sion, thf.t  the  higher  classes  were,  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
hostile  to  his  undertaking,  and  that  no  rising  had  taken  place 
except  in  the  counties  where  he  had  himself  appeared.  He 
had  been  assured  by  agents,  who  professed  to  have  derived 
their  information  from  Wildman,  that  the  whole  Whig  aris- 
tocracy was  eager  to  take  arms.  Nevertheless  more  than  a 
week  had  now  elapsed  since  the  blue  standard  had  been  set 
up  at  Lyme.  Day  laborers,  small  farmers,  shopkeepers, 
apprentices,  dissenting  preachers,  had  flocked  to  the  rebel 
camp ;  but  not  a  single  peer,  baronet,  or  knight,  not  a  single 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  scarcely  any  esquire 
of  sufficient  note  to  have  ever  been  in  the  commission  of  the 
peace,  had  joined  the  invaders.  Ferguson,  who,  ever  since 
the  death  of  Charles,  had  been  Monmouth's  evil  angel,  had 
a  suggestion  ready.  The  duke  had  put  himself  into  a  false 
position  by  declining  the  royal  title.  Had  he  declared  him- 
self sovereign  of  England,  his  cause  would  have  worn  a  show 
of  legality.  At  present  it  was  impossible  to  reconcile  his 
Declaration  with  the  principles  of  the  constitution.  It  was 
clear  that  either  Monmouth  or  his  uncle  was  rightful  king. 
Monmouth  did  not  venture  to  pronounce  himself  the  rightful 
king,  and  yet  denied  that  his  uncle  was  so.  Those  who  fought 
for  James  fought  for  the  only  person  who  ventured  to  claim 
_the  throne,  and  were  therefore  clearly  in  their  duty,  according 
to  the  laws  of  the  realm.  Those  who  fought  for  Monmouth 
fought  for  some  unknown  polity,  which  was  to  be  set  up  by 
a  convention  not  yet  in  existence.  None  could  wonder  that 
men  of  high  rank  and  ample  fortune  stood  aloof  from  an 
enterprise  which  threatened  with  destruction  that  system  in 
the  permanence  of  which  they  were  deeply  interested.  If  the 
duke  would  assert  his  legitimacy  and  assume  the  crown,  he 
would  at  once  remove  this  objection.  The  question  would 
cease  to  be  a  question  between  the  old  constitution  and  £ 
new  constitution.  It  would  be  merely  a  question  of  hereditary 
right  between  two  princes. 

On  such  grounds  as  these  Ferguson,  almost  immediately 
after  the  landing,  had  earnestly  pressed  the  duke  to  proclaim 
himself  king ;  and  Grey  was  of  the  same  opinion.  Mon 
mouth  had  been  very  willing  to  take  this  advice ;  but  Wads 
and  other  republicans  had  been  refractory ;  and  their  chief, 
with  his  usual  pliability,  had  yielded  to  their  arguments.  Al 


HISTORY    OF     ENGLAND.  463 

Tauntonthe  subject  was  revived.  Monmouth  talked  in  private 
with  the  dissentients,  assured  them  that  he  saw  no  other  way 
of  obtaining  the  support  of  any  portion  of  the  aristocracy, 
and  succeeded  in  extorting  their  reluctant  consent.  On  the 
morning  of  the  twentieth  of  June  he  was  proclaimed  in  the 
market  place  of  Taunton.  His  followers  repeated  his  new 
title  with  affectionate  delight.  But,  as  some  confusion  might 
have  arisen  if  he  had  been  called  King  James  the  Second, 
they  commonly  used  the  strange  appellation  of  King  Mon- 
inouth ;  and  by  this  name  their  unhappy  favorite  was  often 
mentioned  in  the  western  counties,  within  the  memory  of  per- 
sons still  living.* 

Within  twenty-four  hours  after  he  had  assumed  the  regal 
title,  he  put  forth  several  proclamations  headed  with  his  sign 
manual.  By  one  of  these  he  set  a  price  on  the  head  of  his 
rival.  Another  declared  the  parliament  then  sitting  at  West- 
minster an  unlawful  assembly,  and  commanded  the  members 
to  disperse.  The  third  forbade  the  people  to  pay  taxes  to 
the  usurper.  The  fourth  pronounced  Albemarle  a  traitor.t 

Albemarle  transmitted  these  proclamations  to  London  mere- 
ly as  specimens  of  folly  and  impertinence.  They  produced  no 
effect,  except  wonder  and  contempt ;  nor  had  Monmouth  any 
reason  to  think  that  the  assumption  of  royalty  had  improved 
^is  position.  Only  a  week  had  elapsed  since  he  had  solemnly 
bound  himself  not  to  take  the  crown  till  a  free  parliament 
should ,  have  acknowledged  his  rights.  By  breaking  that 
engagement  he  had  incurred  the  imputation  of  levity,  if  not 
of  perfidy.  The  class  which  he  had  hoped  to  conciliate  still 
stood  aloof.  The  reasons  which  prevented  the  great  Whig 
lords  and  gentlemen  from  recognizing  him  as  their  king  were 
at  least  as  strong  as  those  which  had  prevented  them  from 
rallying  round  him  as  their  captain-general.  They  disliked 
indeed,  the  person,  the  religion,  and  the  politics  of  James. 
But  James  was  no  longer  young.  His  eldest  daughter  was 
justly  popular.  She  was  attached  to  the  reformed  faith.  She 
was  married  to  a  prince  who  was  the  hereditary  chief  of  the 
Protestants  of  the  Continent,  to  a  prince  who  had  been  bred 

*  Wade's  Confession;  Goodenough's  Cotfession,  Harl.  MS.  1152; 
Oldmixon,  702.  Ferguson's  denial  is  quite  undeserving  of  credit.  A 
copy  of  the  proclamation  is  in  the  Harl.  MS.  7006. 

t  Copies  of  the  last  three  proclamations  are  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. Harl.  MS.  7006.  The  first  I  have  never  seen  ;  but  it  is  men- 
tioned by  Wade. 


464  HISTCRT    OF    ENGLIND. 

in  a  republic,  and  whose  sentiments  were  supposed  to  be  such 
as  became  a  constitutional  king.  Was  it  wise  to  incur  the 
horrors  of  civil  war,  for  the  mere  chance  of  being  able  to 
effect  immediately  what  nature  would,  without  bloodshed,  with- 
out any  violation  of  law,  effect,  in  all  probability,  before  many 
years  should  have  expired  ?  Perhaps  there  might  be  reasons 
for  pulling  jdowri  James.  But  what  reason  could  be  given  for 
setting  up  Monmouth  ?  To  exclude  a  prince  from  the  throne 
on  account  of  unfitness  was  a  course  agreeable  to  Whig  prin- 
ciples. But  on  no  principle  could  it  be  proper  to  exclude 
rightful  heirs,  who  were  admitted  to  be,  not  only  blameless, 
but  eminently  qualified  for  the  highest  public  trust.  That 
Monmouth  was  legitimate,  nay,  that  he  thought  himself  legit- 
imate, intelligent  men  could  not  believe.  He  was  therefore 
not  merely  a  usurper,  but  a  usurper  of  the  worst  sort,  an 
impostor.  If  he  made  out  any  semblance  of  a  case,  he  could 
do  so  only  by  means  of  forgery  and  perjury.  All  honest  and 
sensible  persons  were  unwilling  to  see  a  fraud  which,  if  prac- 
tised to  obtain  an  estate,  would  have  been  punished  with  the 
scourge  and  the  pillory,  rewarded  with  the  English  crown. 
To  the  old  nobility  of  the  realm  it  seemed  insupportable  that 
the  bastard  of  Lucy  Walters  should  be  set  up  high  above 
the  lawful  descendants  of  the  Fitzalans  and  De  Veres.  Those 
who  were  capable  of  looking  forward  must  have  seen  that, 
if  Monmouth  should  succeed  in  overpowering  the  existing 
government,  there  would  still  remain  a  war  between  him  and 
the  House  of  Orange,  a  war  which  might  last  longer  and  pro- 
duce more  misery  than  the  war  of  the  Roses,  a  war  which 
might  probably  break  up  the  Protestants  of  Europe  into  hos- 
tile parties,  might  arm  England  and  Holland  against  each  other, 
and  might  make  both  those  countries  an  easy  prey  to  France. 
Che  opinion,  therefore,  of  almost  all  the  leading  Wi  jgs  seems 
to  have  been  that  Monmouth's  enterprise  could  not  fail  to  end 
in  some  great  disaster  to  the  nation,  but  that,  on  the  whole, 
his  defeat  would  be  a  less  disaster  than  his  victory. 

It  was  not  only  by  the  inaction  of  the  Whig  aristocracy 
that  the  invaders  were  disappointed.  The  wealth  and  power 
of  London  had  sufficed  in  the  preceding  generation,  and  might 
again  suffice,  to  turn  the  scale  in  a  civil  conflict.  The  Lon- 
doners had  formerly  given  many  proofs  of  theii  hatred  of 
Popery  and  of  their  affection  for  the  Protestant  duke.  He  had 
too  readily  believed  that,  as  soon  as  he  landed,  there  would 
be  a  rising  in  the  capital.  Bat,  though  advices  came  down  to 


HISTORY    CF    ENGLAND.  465 

him  that  many  fnousands  of  the  citizens  had  been  enrolled  as 
volunteers  for  the  good  cause,  nothing  was  done.  The  plain 
truth  was,  that  the  agitators  who  had  encouraged  him  to  invade 
England,  who  had  promised  to  rise  on  the  first  signal,  and 
who  had  perhaps  imagined,  while  the  danger  was  remote, 
that  they  should  have  the  courage  to  keep  their  promise,  lost 
heart  when  the  critical  time  drew  near.  Wildman's  fright 
was  such  that  he  seemed  to  have  lost  his  understanding.  The 
craven  Danvers  at  first  excused  his  inaction  by  saying  that  ho 
would  not  take  up  arms  till:  Monmouth  was  proclaimed  king, 
and,  when  Monmouth  had  been  proclaimed  king,  turned  round 
and  declared  that  good  republicans  were  absolved  from  all 
engagements  to  a  leader  who  had  so  shamefully  broken  faith. 
In  every  age  the  vilest  specimens  of  human  nature  are  to  be 
found  among  demagogues.* 

On  the  day  following  that  on  which  Monmouth  had  assumed' 
the  regal  title  he  marched  from  Taunton  to  Bridgewater.  His 
own  spirits,  it  was  remarked,  were  not  high.  The  acclama- 
tions of  the  devoted  thousands  who  surrounded  him  wherever 
he  turned  could  not  dispel  the  gloom  which  sate  on  his  brow. 
Those  who  had  seen  him  during  his  progress  through  Somer- 
setshire five  years  before  could  not  now  observe  without  pity 
the  traces  of  distress  and  anxiety  on  those  soft  and  pleasing 
features  which  had  won  so  many  hearts.t 

Ferguson  was  in  a  very  different  temper.  With  this  man's 
knavery  was  strangely  mingled  an  eccentric  vanity  which  re- 
sembled madness.  The  thought  that  he  had  raised  a  rebellion 
and  bestowed  a  crown  had  turned  his  head.  He  swaggered 
about,  brandishing  his  naked  sword,  and  crying  to  the  crowd 
of  spectators  who  had  assembled  to  see  the  army  march  out 
of  Taunton,  "  Look  at  me !  You  have  heard  of  me.  I  am 
Ferguson,  the  famous  Ferguson,  the  Ferguson  for  whose  head  so 
many  hundred  pounds  have  been  offered."  And  this  man,  at 
once  unprincipled  and  brainsick,  had  in  his  keeping  the  under- 
standing and  the  conscience  of  the  unhappy  Monmouth.! 

Bridgewater  was  one  of  the  few  towns  which  still  had  some 
Whig  magistrates.  The  mayor  and  aldermen  came  in  their 
robes  to  welcome  the  duke,  walked  before  him  in  procession 
to  the  high  cross,  and  there  proclaimed  him  king.  His  troops 

*  Grey's  Narrative;  Ferguson's  MS.,  Eachai  1,  iii.  754. 
t  Persecution  Exposed,  by  John  Whiting, 
j  Harl.  MS.  6845. 

30* 


466  HISTORS    OF    ENGLAND. 

found  excellent  quarters,  and  were  furnished  with  necessaries 
at  little  or  no  cost  by  the  people  of  the  town  and  neighborhood. 
He  took  up  his  residence  in  the  castle,  a  building  which  had 
been  previously  honored  by  royal  visits.  In  the  castle  field 
his  army  was  encamped.  It  now  consisted  of  about  six  thou- 
sand men,  and  might  easily  have  been  increased  to  double  the 
number,  but  for  the  want  of  arms.  The  duke  had  brought 
with  him  from  the  Continent  but  a  scanty  supply  of  pikes  and 
rnuskets.  Many  of  his  followers  had,  therefore,  no  other 
weapons  than  such  as  could  be  made  out  of  the  tools  which 
they  had  used  in  husbandry  or  mining.  Of  these  rude  imple- 
ments of  war  the  most  formidable  was  made  by  fastening  the 
blade  of  a  scythe  erect  on  a  strong  pole.  The  tithing  men 
of  the  country  round  Taunton  and  Bridgewater  received  orders 
to  search  every  where  for  scythes,  and  to  bring  all  that  could 
be  found  to  the  camp.  It  was  impossible,  however,  even  with 
the  help  of  these  contrivances,  to  supply  the  demand ;  and 
great  numbers  who  were  desirous  to  enlist  were  sent  away.* 

The  foot  was  divided  into  six  regiments.  Many  of  the  men 
had  been  in  the  militia,  and  still  wore  their  uniforms,  red  and 
yellow.  The  cavalry  were  about  a  thousand  in  number ;  but 
most  of  them  had  only  large  colts,  such  as  were  then  bred  in 
great  herds  on  the  marshes  of  Somersetshire  for  the  purpose 
of  supplying  London  with  coach  horses  and  cart  horses. 
These  animals  were  so  far  from  being  fit  for  any  military  pur- 
pose that  they  had  not  yet  learned  to  obey  the  bridle,  and 
became  ungovernable  as  soon  as  they  heard  a  gun  fired  or  a 
drim  beaten.  A  small  body  guard  of  forty  young  men,  well 
armed  and  mounted  at  their  own  charge,  attended  Monmouth. 
The  people  of  Bridgewater,  who  were  enriched  by  a  thriving 
coast  trade,  furnished  him  with  a  small  sum  of  money .t 

All  this  time  the  forces  of  the  government  were  fast  assem- 
bling. On  the  west  of  the  rebel  army  Albemarle  still  kep* 
together  a  large  body  of  Devonshire  militia.  On  the  east  the 
trainbands  of  Wiltshire  had  mustered  under  the  command  of 
Thomas  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke.  On  the  north-east, 
Henry  Somerset,  Duke  of  Beaufort,  %vas  in  arms.  The  power 
of  Beaufort  bore  some  faint  resemblance  to  that  of  the  great 
barons  of  the  fifteenth  century.  He  was  president  of  Wales 

*  Grey's  Narrative  ;  PaschalTs  Narrative  in  the  Appendix  to  Hey- 
vood's  Vindication, 
t  Oldmixon,  702. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  467 

and  lord  lieutenant  of  four  English  counties.  His  official 
tours  through  the  extensive  region  in  which  he  represented  the 
majesty  of  the  throne  were  scarcely  inferior  in  pomp  to  royal 
progresses.  His  household  at  Badminton  was  regulated  after 
the  fashion  of  an  earlier  generation.  The  land  to  a  great 
extent  round  his  pleasure  grounds  was  in  his  own  hands  ;  and 
the  laborers  who  cultivated  it  formed  part  of  his  family.  Nine 
tables  were  every  day  spread  under  his  roof  for  two  hundred 
persons.  A  crowd  of  gentlemen  and  pages  were  under  the 
orders  of  his  steward.  A  whole  troop  of  cavalry  obeyed  the 
master  of  the  horse.  The  fame  of  the  kitchen,  the  cellar,  the 
kennel,  and  the  stables  was  spread  over  all  England.  The 
gentry,  many  miles  round,  were  proud  of  the  magnificence  of 
their  great  neighbor,  and  were  at  the  same  time  charmed  by 
his  affability  and  good  nature.  He  was  a  zealous  Cavalier  of 
the  old  school.  At  this  crisis,  therefore,  he  used  his  whole 
influence  and  authority  in  support  of  the  crown,  and  occupied 
Bristol  with  the  trainbands  of  Gloucestershire,  who  seem  to 
have  been  better  disciplined  than  most  other  troops  of  that 
description.* 

In  the  counties  more  remote  from  Somersetshire  the  sup- 
porters of  the  throne  were  on  the  alert.  The  militia  of  Sus- 
sex began  to  march  westward,  under  the  command  of  Richard, 
Lord  Lumley,  who,  though  he  had  lately  been  converted  from 
the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  was  still  firm  in  his  allegiance  to 
a  Roman  Catholic  king.  James  Bertie,  Earl  of  Abingdon, 
called  out  the  array  of  Oxfordshire.  John  Fell,  Bishop  of 
Oxford,  who  was  also  dean  of  Christchurch,  summoned  the 
undergraduates  of  his  university  to  take  arms  for  the  crown. 
The  gownsmen  crowded  to  give  in  their  names.  Christchurch 
alone  furnished  near  a  hundred  pikemen  and  musketeers. 
Young  noblemen  and  gentlemen  commoners  acted  as  officers ; 
and  the  eldest  son  of  the  lord  lieutenant  was  colonel.t 

But  it  was  chiefly  on  t"ie  regular  troops  that  the  king  relied. 
Churchil.  had  been  sen:  westward  with  the  Blues;  and  Fe- 
versham  was  following  with  all  the  forces  that  could  be  spared 
from  the  neighborhood  of  London.  A  courier  had  started  for 
Holland  with  a  letter  directing  Skelton  instantly  to  request  thai 

*  North's  Life  of  Guildford,  132;  Accounts  of  Beaufort's  progress 
through  Wales  and  the  neighboring  counties  in  the  London  Gazettes 
of  July,  1684  ;  Letter  of  Beaufort  to  Clarendon,  June  19,  1685. 

t  Bishop  Fell  to  Clarendon,  Juno  20 ;  Abingdon  to  Clarendon, 
June  20,  25,  26,  1686  ;  LanscUnvne  MS.  846. 


468  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

^-  * 

the  three  English  r3gim3nts  in  the  Dutch  service  might  be  sen 
to  the  Thames.  When  the  request  was  made,  the  party  hostile 
to  the  House  of  Orange,  headed  by  the  deputies  of  Amsterdam 
tried  to  cause  delay.  But  the  energy  of  William,  who  had 
almost  as  much  at  stake  as  James,  and  who  saw  Monmouth's 
prog/ess  with  serious  uneasiness,  bore  down  opposition  ;  and 
in  a  few  days  the  troops  sailed.*  The  three  Scotch  regiments 
were  already  in  England.  They  had  arrived  at  Gravesend  in 
excellent  condition,  and  James  had  reviewed  them  on  Black- 
heath.  He  repeatedly  declared  to  the  Dutch  ambassador  thai 
he  had  never  in  his  life  seen  finer  or  better  disciplined  soldiers, 
and  that  he  felt  the  warmest  gratitude  to  the  Prince  of  Orange 
and  the  States  for  so  valuable  and  seasonable  a  reenforcement. 
His  satisfaction,  however,  was  not  unmixed.  Excellently  as 
the  men  went  through  their  drill,  they  were  not  untainted  with 
Dutch  politics  and  Dutch  divinity.  One  of  them  was  shot  and 
another  flogged  for  drinking  the  Duke  of  Monmouth's  health. 
It  was  therefore  not  thought  advisable  to  place  them  in  the 
post  of  danger.  They  were  kept  in  the  neighborhood  of  Lon- 
don till  the  end  of  the  campaign.  But  their  arrival  enabled 
the  king  to  send  to  the  west  som.e  infantry  which  would  other- 
wise have  been  wanted  in  the  capital  .t 

While  the  government  was  thus  preparing  for  a  conflict  with 
the  rebels  in  the  field,  precautions  of  a  very  different  kind  were 
not  neglected.  In  London  alone  two  hundred  of  those  per- 
sons who  were  thought  most  likely  to  be  at  the  head  of  a 
Whig  movement  were  arrested.  Among  these  prisoners  were 
some  merchants  of  great  note.  Every  man  who  was  obnox- 
ious to  the  court  went  in  fear.  A  general  gloom  overhung 
the  capital.  Business  languished  on  the  Exchange ;  and  the 
theatres  were  so  generally  deserted  that  a  new  opera,  written 
by  Dryden,  and  set  ofFby  decorations  of  unprecedented  mag- 
nificence, was  withdrawn,  because  the  receipts  would  not 
cover  the  expenses  of  the  performance.!  The  magistrates 
and  clergy  were  every  where  active.  The  dissenters  were 
every  where  closely  observed.  In  Cheshire  and  Shropshire  a 
fierce  persecution  raged;  in  Northamptonshire  arrests  were 
jaumerous  ;  and  the  jail  of  Oxford  was  crowded  with  prisoners. 

*  Avaux,  July  -fa,  -fa,  1685. 

t  Citters,  j^?,  July  -&,  July  jft,  1685;  Avaux  Neg.  July  ^; 
London  Gazette,  July  6. 

J  Barillon,  July  •&,  1685  ;  Soott's  Prafaoe  to  Albion  and  Albaniu* 


HISTOR/    OF    ENGLAND.  469 

No  Puritan  divine,  however  moderate  his  opinions,  however 
guarded  his  conduct,  could  feel  any  confidence  that  he  should 
not  be  torn  from  his  family  and  flung  into  a  dungeon.* 

Meanwhile  Monmouth  advanced  from  Bridgewater,  har- 
assed through  the  whole  march  by  Churchill,  who  appears  to 
have  done  all  that,  with  a  handful  of  men,  it  was  possible  for 
a  brave  and  skilful  officer  to  effect.  The  rebel  army,  much 
annoyed  both  by  the  enemy  and  by  a  heavy  fall  of  rain, 
halted  in  the  evening  of  the  twenty-second  of  June  at  Glas- 
tonbury.  The  houses  of  the  little  town  did  not  afford  shelter 
for  so  large  a  force.  Some  of  the  troops  were  therefore  quar- 
tered in  the  churches,  and  others  lighted  their  fires  among  the 
venerable  ruins  of  the  abbey,  once  the  wealthiest  religious 
house  in  our  island.  From  Glastonbury  the  duke  marched  to 
Wells,  and  from  Wells  to  Shepton  Mallet.t 

Hitherto  he  seems  to  have  wandered  from  place  to  place 
with  no  other  object  than  that  of  collecting  troops.  It  was 
now  necessary  for  him  to  form  some  plan  of  military  opera- 
tions. His  first  scheme  was  to  seize  Bristol.  Many  of  the 
chief  inhabitants  of  that  important  place  were  Whigs.  One 
of  the  ramifications  of  the  Whig  Plot  had  extended  thither. 
The  garrison  consisted  only  of  the  Gloucestershire  trainbands. 
If  Beaufort  and  his  rustic  followers  could  be  overpowered 
before  the  regular  troops  arrived,  the  rebels  would  at  once 
find  themselves  possessed  of  ample  pecuniary  resources ;  the 
credit  of  Monmouth's  arms  would  be  raised ;  and  his  friends 
throughout  the  kingdom  would  be  encouraged  to  declare  them- 
selves. Bristol  had  fortifications  which,  on  the  north  of  the 
Avon  towards  Gloucestershire,  were  weak,  but  on  the  south 
towards  Somersetshire  were  much  stronger.  It  was  therefore 
determined  that  the  attack  should  be  made  on  the  Gloucester- 
shire side.  But  for  this  purpose  it  was  necessary  to  take  a 
circuitous  route,  and  to  cross  the  Avon  at  Keynsham.  The 
bridge  at  Keynsham  had  been  partly  demolished  by  the  militia, 
and  was  at  present  impassable.  A  detachment  was  therefore 
sent  forward  to  make  the  necessary  repairs.  The  other  troops 
followed  more  slowly,  and  on  the  evening  of  the 'twenty-fourth 
of  June  halted  for  repose  at  Pensford.  At  Pensford  they  were 
only  five  miles  from  the  Somersetshire  side  of  Bristol ;  but 

*  Abingdon  to  Clarendon,  June  29,  1685.  Life  of  Philip  Henry, 
by  Bates. 

f  London  Gazette,  June  22  and  June  25,  1685 ;   Wade's  Confes- 
sion ;  Oldmixon,  703  ;  Harl.  MS.  6845. 
VOL.   I.  40 


470  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  Gloucestershire  side,  which  could  be  reached  onjy  by 
going  round  through  Keynsham,  was  distant  a  long  day's 
march.* 

That  night  was  one  of  great  tumult  and  expectation  in 
Bristol.  The  partisans  of  Monmouth  knew  that  he  was  almost 
within  sight  of  their  city,  and  imagined  that  he  would  be  among 
them  before  daybreak.  About  an  hour  after  sunset  a  mer 
chantman  lying  at  the  quay  took  fire.  Such  an  occurrence 
in  a  port  crowded  with  shipping,  could  not  but  excite  great 
alarm.  The  whole  river  was  in  commotion.  The  streets 
were  crowded.  Seditious  cries  were  heard  amidst  the  dark- 
ness and  confusion.  It  was  afterwards  asserted,  both  by  Whigs 
and  by  Tories,  that  the  fire  had  been  kindled  by  the  friends 
of  Monmouth,  in  the  hope  that  the  trainbands  would  be  busied 
in  preventing  the  conflagration  from  spreading,  and  that  in  the 
mean  time  the  rebel  army  would  make  a  bold  push,  and  enter 
the  city  on  the  Somersetshire  side.  If  such  was  the  design 
of  the  incendiaries,  it  completely  failed.  Beaufort,  instead 
of  sending  his  men  to  the  quay,  kept  them  all  night  drawn  up 
under  arms  round  the  beautiful  church  of  St.  Mary  Redcliff, 
on  the  south  of  the  Avon.  He  would  see  Bristol  burned 
down,  he  said,  nay,  he  would  burn  it  down  himself,  rather 
than  that  it  should  be  occupied  by  traitors.  He  was  able,  with 
the  help  of  some  regular  cavalry  which  had  joined  him  from 
Chippenham  a  few  hours  before,  to  prevent  an  insurrection. 
It  might  have  been  beyond  his  power  at  once  to  overawe  the 
malcontents  within  the  walls  and  to  repel  an  attack  from  with- 
out ;  but  no  such  attack  was  made.  The  fire,  which  caused 
so  much  commotion  at  Bristol,  was  distinctly  seen  at  Pensford. 
Monmouth,  however,  did  not  think  it  expedient  to  change  his 
plan.  He  remained  quiet  till  sunrise,  and  then  marched  to 
Keynsham.  There  he  found  the  bridge  repaired.  He  deter- 
mined to  let  his  army  rest  during  the  afternoon,  and,  as  soon 
as  night  came,  to  proceed  to  Bristol.t 

But  it  was  too  late.  The  king's  forces  were  now  near  at 
hand.  Colonel  Oglethorpe,  at  the  head  of  about  a  hundred 
men  of  the  Life  Guards,  dashed  into  Keynsham,  scattered 
two  troops  of  rebel  horse  which  ventured  to  oppose  him,  and 
retired  after  inflicting  much  injury  and  suffering  little.  Under 

*  Wade's  Confession. 

t  Wade's  Confession;  Oldmixon,  703;  HarL  MS.  6845;"  Charg* 
of  Jeffreys  to  the  grand  jury  of  Bristol,  Sept.  21,  1685. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLANr  471 

J  ise  circumstances  it  was  thought  necessary  to  relinquish  the 
tk-sign  on  Bristol.* 

But  what  was  to  be  dene  ?  Several  schemes  were  proposed 
and  discussed.  It  was  suggested  that  Monmouth  might  hasten 
to  Gloucester,  might  cross  the  Severn  there,  might  break  down 
the  bridge  behind  him,  and,  with  his  right  flank  protected  by 
the  river,  might  march  through  Worcestershire  into  Shropshire 
and  Cheshire.  He  had  formerly  made  a  progress  through 
those  counties,  and  had  been  received  there  with  as  much 
enthusiasm  as  in  Somersetshire  and  Devonshire.  His  pres- 
ence might  revive  the  enthusiasm  of  his  old  friends ;  and  his 
army  might  in  a  few  days  be  swollen  to  double  its  present 
numbers. 

On  full  consideration,  however,  it  appeared  that  this  plan 
though  specious,  was  impracticable.  The  rebels  were  ill  shod 
for  such  work  as  they  had  lately  undergone,  and  were  exhausted 
by  toiling,  day  after  day,  through  deep  mud  under  heavy  rain. 
Harassed  and  impeded  as  they  would  be  at  every  stage  by  the 
enemy's  cavalry,  they  could  not  hope  to  reach  Gloucester 
without  being  overtaken  by  the  main  body  of  the  royal  troops, 
and  forced  to  a  general  action  under  every  disadvantage. 

Then  it  was  proposed  to  enter  Wiltshire.  Persons  who 
professed  to  know  that  county  well  assured  the  duke  that  he 
would  be  joined  there  by  such  strong  reinforcements  as  would 
make  it  safe  for  him  to  give  battle.t 

He  took  this  advice,  and  turned  towards  Wiltshire.  He 
first  summoned  Bath.  But  Bath  was  strongly  garrisoned  for 
the  king ;  and  Feversham  wa's  fast  approaching.  The  rebels, 
therefore,  made  no  attempt  on  the  walls,  but  hastened  to 
Philip's  Norton,  where  they  halted  on  the  evening  of  the 
twenty-sixth  of  June. 

Feversham  followed  them  thither.  Early  on  the  morning 
of  the  twenty-seventh  they  were  alarmed  by  tidings  that  he 
was  close  at  hand.  They  got  into  order,  and  lined  the  hedges 
leading  to  the  town. 

The  advanced  guard  of  the  royal  army  soon  appeared.  It 
consisted  of  about  five  hundred  men,  commanded  by  the  Duke 
of  Grafton,  a  youth  of  bold  spirit  and  rough  manners,  who 
was  probably  eager  to  show  that  he  i.ad  no  share  in  the  dis- 
loyal schemes  of  his  half  brother.  Grafton  soon  found  him- 
self in  a  deep  lane  with  fences  on  both  sides  of  him,  from 

»  London  Gazette,  June  29,  1685  ;  Wade's  Confession. 
t  Wade's  Confession. 


472  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

which  a  galling  fire  of  musketry  was  kept  up.  Still  he  pushed 
boldly  on  till  he  came  to  the  entrance  of  Philip's  Norton. 
There  his  way  was  crossed  by  a  barricade,  from  which  a  third 
fire  met  him  full  in  front.  His  men  now  lost  heart,  and  made 
the  best  of  their  way  back.  Before  they  got  out  of  the  lane 
more  than  a  hundred  of  them  had  been  killed  or  wounded. 
Grafton's  retreat  was  intercepted  by  some  of  the  rebel  cavalry ; 
but  he  cut  his  way  gallantly  through  them,  and  came  off  safe.* 

The  advanced  guard,  thus  repulsed,  fell  back  on  the  main 
body  of  the  royal  forces.  The  two  armies  were  now  face  to 
face ;  and  a  few  shots  were  exchanged  that  did  little  or  no 
execution.  Neither  side  was  impatient  to  come  to  action. 
Feversham  did  not  wish  to  fight  till  his  artillery  came  up,  and 
fell  back  to  Bradford.  Monmouth,  as  soon  as  the  night  closed 
in,  quitted  his  position,  marched  southward,  and  by  daybreak 
arrived  at  Frome,  where  he  hoped  to  find  reinforcements. 

Frome  was  as  zealous  in  his  cause  as  either  Taunton  01 
Bridgewater,  but  could  do  nothing  to  serve  him.  There  had 
been  a  rising  a  few  days  before ;  and  Monmouth's  declaration 
had  been  posted  up  in  the  market  place.  But  the  news  of 
this  movement  had  been  carried  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
who  lay  at  no  great  distance  with  the  Wiltshire  militia.  He 
had  instantly  marched  to  Frome,  had  routed  a  mob  of  rustics 
who,  with  scythes  and  pitchforks,  attempted  to  oppose  him, 
had  entered  the  town,  and  had  disarmed  the  inhabitants.  No 
weapons,  therefore,  were  left  there  ;  nor  was  Monmouth  able 
to  furnish  any.t 

The  rebel  army  was  in  evil  case.  The  march  of  the  pre- 
ceding night  had  been  wearisome.  The  rain  had  fallen  in 
torrents  ;  and  the  roads  had  been  mere  quagmires.  Nothing 
was  heard  of  the  promised  succors  from  Wiltshire.  One 
messenger  brought  news  that  Argyle's  forces  had  been  dis- 
persed in  Scotland.  Another  reported  that  Feversham,  hav- 
ing been  joined  by  his  artillery,  was  about  to  advance.  Mon- 
mouth understood  war  too  well  not  to  know  that  his  followers, 
with  all  their  courage  and  all  their  zeal,  were  no  match  for 
regular  soldiers.  He  had  till  lately  flattered  himself  with  the 
hope  that  some  of  those  regiments  which  he  had  formerly 
commanded  would  pass  over  to  his  standard.  But  that  hope 
he  was  now  compelled  to  relinquish.  His  heart  failed  him. 

*  London  Gazette,  July  2,  1685  ;  Barillon,  July  -^ ;  Wade's  Con- 
fession. 

t  London  Gaaette,  June  29,  1685 ;  Cittere,  j 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  473 

He  could  scarcely  muster  firmness  enough  to  give  orders.  In 
his  misery  he  complained  bitterly  of  the  evil  counsellors  who 
had  induced  him  to  quit  his  happy  retreat  in  Brabant.  Against 
Wildman  in  particular  he  broke  forth  into  violent  impreca- 
tions.* And  now  an  ignominious  thought  rose  in  his  weak 
and  agitated  mind.  He  would  leave  to  the  mercy  of  the  gov- 
ernment the  thousands  who  had,  at  his  call  and  for  his  sake, 
abandoned  their  quiet  fields  and  dwellings.  He  would  steal 
away  with  his  chief  officers,  would  gain  some  seaport  before 
his  flight  was  suspected,  would  escape  to  the  Continent,  and 
would  forget  his  ambition  and  his  shame  in  the  arms  of  Lady 
Wentworth.  He  seriously  discussed  the  scheme  with  his 
leading  advisers.  Some  of  them,  trembling  for  their  necks, 
listened  to  it  with  approbation ;  but  Grey,  Who,  by  the  admis- 
sion of  his  detractors,  was  intrepid  every  where  except  when 
swords  were  clashing  and  guns  going  off  around  him,  opposed 
the  dastardly  proposition  with  great  ardor,  and  implored  the 
duke  to  face  every  danger  rather  than  requite  with  ingratitude 
fcnd  treachery  the  devoted  attachment  of  the  western  peas- 
antry .t 

The  scheme  of  flight  was  abandoned  ;  but  it  was  not  now 
easy  to  form  any  plan  for  a  campaign.  To  advance  to  Lon- 
don would  have  been  madness ;  for  the  road  lay  right  across 
Salisbury  Plain  ;  and  on  that  vast  open  space  regular  troops, 
and  above  all  regular  cavalry,  would  have  acted  with  every 
advantage  against  undisciplined  men.  At  this  juncture  a 
report  reached  the  camp  that  the  rustics  of  the  marshes  near 
Axbridge  had  risen  for  the  Protestant  religion,  had  armed 
themselves  with  flails,  bludgeons,  and  pitchforks,  and  were 
assembling  by  thousands  at  Bridgewater.  Monmouth  deter- 
mined to  return  thither,  and  to  strengthen  himself  with  these 
new  allies.J 

The  rebels  accordingly  proceeded  to  Wells,  and  arrived 
there  in  no  amiable  temper.  They  were,  with  few  exceptions, 
hostile  to  prelacy ;  and  they  showed  their  hostility  in  a  way 
very  little  to  their  honor.  They  not  only  tore  the  lead  from 
the  roof  of  the  magnificent  cathedral  to  make  bullets,  —  an  act 
for  which  they  might  fairly  plead  the  necessities  of  war,  —  but 
wantonly  defaced  the  ornaments  of  the  building.  Grey  with 


*  Harl.  MS.  6845 ;  Wade's  Confession, 
t  Wade's  Confession ;  Eachard,  iii.  7G6. 
J  Wade's  Confession. 
40* 


474  HISTORY    OJT    ENGLAND. 

difficulty  preserved  the  altar  from  the  insults  of  some  ruffians 
who  wished  to  carouse  round  it,  by  taking  his  stand  before  il 
with  his  sword  drawn.* 

On  Thursday,  the  second  of  July,  Monmouth  again  entered 
Bridgewater,  in  circumstances  far  less  cheering  than  those  in 
which  he  had  marched  thence  ten  days  before.  The  reen- 
forcement  which  he  found  there  was  inconsiderable.  The 
royal  army  was  drawing  nigh.  At  one  moment  ne  thought 
of  fortifying  the  town ;  and  hundreds  of  laborers  were  sum- 
moned to  djgr  trenches  and  throw  up  mounds.  Then  his  mind 
recurred  $nfie  plan  of  marching  into  Cheshire,  a  plan  which 
he  had  rejected  as  impracticable  when  he  was  at  Keynsham, 
and  which  assuredly  was  not  more  practicable  now  that  he 
was  at  Bridgewater.t 

While  he  was  thus  wavering  between  projects  equally  hope- 
less, the  king's  forces  came  in  sight.  They  consisted  of 
about  two  thousand  five  hundred  regular  troops,  and  of  about 
fifteen  hundred  of  the  Wiltshire  militia.  Early  on  the  morn- 
ing of  Sunday,  the  fifth  of  July,  they  left  Somerton,  and 
pitched  their  tents  that  day  about  three  miles  from  Bridge- 
water,  on  the  plain  of  Sedgemoor. 

Doctor  Peter  Mew,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  accompanied 
them.  This  prelate  had  in  his  youth  borne  arms  for  Charles 
the  First  against  the  parliament.  Neither  his  years  nor  his 
profession  had  wholly  extinguished  his  martial  ardor ;  and  he 
probably  thought  that  the  appearance  of  a  father  of  the  Prot 
estant  church  in  the  king's  camp  might  reassure  some  honest 
men  who  were  wavering  between  their  horror  of  Popery  and 
their  horror  of  rebellion.  , 

The  steeple  of  the  parish  church  of  Bridgewater  is  said  to 
be  the  loftiest  in  Somersetshire,  and  commands  a  wide  view 
over  the  surrounding  country.  Monmouth,  accompanied  by 
some  of  his  officers,  went  up  to  the  top  of  the  square  tower 
from  which  the  spire  ascends,  and  observed  through  a  tele- 
scope the  position  of  the  enemy.  Beneath  him  lay  a  flat 
expanse,  now  rich  with  cornfields  and  apple-trees,  but  then, 
as  its  name  imports,  for  the  most  part  a  dreary  morass.  When 
the  rains  were  heavy,  and  the  Parret  and  its  tributary  streams 
rose  above  their  banks,  this  tract  was  often  flooded.  It  was 
indeed  anciently  part  of  that  great  swamp  renowned  in  our 

•  London  Gazette,  July  6,  1685  ;  Citters,  July  &  •  Oldmixon,  703 
t  Wade' a  Confession. 


HISTORY    CJT    ENGLAND.  475 

early  chronicles  as  having  arrested  the  progress  of  two  suc- 
cessive races  of  invaders.  It  had  long  protected  the  Celts 
against  the  aggressions  of  the  kings  of  Wessex ;  and  it  had 
sheltered  Alfred  from  the  pursuit  of  the  Danes.  In  those 
remote  times  this  region  could  be  traversed  only  in  boats.  It 
was  a  vast  pool,  wherein  were  scattered  many  islets  of  shifting 
and  treacherous  soil,  overhung  with  rank  jungle,  and  swarm- 
ing with  deer  and  wild  swine.  Even  in  the  days  of  the 
Tudors,  the  traveller  whose  journey  lay  from  Ilchester  to 
Bridgewater  was  forced  to  make  a  circuit  of  several  miles  in 
order  to  avoid  the  waters.  When  Monmouth  looked  upon 
Sedgemoor,  it  had  been  partially  reclaimed  by  art,  and  was 
intersected  by  many  deep  and  wide  trenches  which,  in  that 
country,  are  called  rhines.  In  the  midst  of  the  moor  rose, 
clustering  round  the  towers  of  churches,  a  few  villages,  of 
which  the  names  seem  to  indicate  that  they  once  were  sur- 
rounded by  waves.  In  one  of  these  villages,  called  Weston 
Zoyland,  the  royal  cavalry  lay ;  and  Feversham  had  fixed  his 
head-quarters  there.  Many  persons  still  living  have  seen  the 
daughter  of  the  servant  girl  who  waited  on  him  that,  day  at 
table  ;  and  a  large  dish  of  Persian  ware,  which  was  set  before 
him,  is  still  carefully  preserved  in  the  neighborhood.  It  is  to 
be  observed  that  the  population  of  Somersetshire  does  not, 
like  that  of  the  manufacturing  districts,  consist  of  emigrants 
from  distant  places.  It  is  by  no  means  unusual  to  find  farm- 
ers who  cultivate  the  same  land  which  their  ancestors  culti- 
vated when  the  Plantagenets  reigned  in  England.  The  Som- 
ersetshire traditions  are,  therefore,  of  no  small  value  to  an 
historian.* 

At  a  greater  distance  from  Bridgewater  lies  the  village  of 
Middlezoy.  In  that  village  and  its  neighborhood,  the  Wilt- 
shire militia  were  quartered,  under  the  command  of  Pem- 
broke. 

On  the  open  moor,  not  far  from  Chedzoy,  were  encamped 
several  battalions  of  regular  infantry.  Monmouth  looked 
gloomily  on  them.  He  could  not  but  remember  how,  a  few 

*  Matt.  West.  Flor.  Hist.,  A.  D.  878 ;  MS.  Chronicle  quoted  by 
Mr.  Sharon  Turner  in  the  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  book  IV. 
chap.  xix. ;  Drayton's  Polyolbion,  iii. ;  Leland's  Itinerary ;  Oldmixon, 
703.  Oldmixon  was  then  at  Bridgewater,  and  probably  saw  the  duke 
on  the  church  tower.  The  dish  mentioned  in  the  text  is  the  property 
of  Mr.  Stradling,  who  has  taken  laudable  pains  to  preserve  the  relic* 
and  traditions  of  the  western  insurrection. 


476  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

years  before,  he  had,  at  the  head  of  a  coiumr  composed  of 
some  of  those  very  men,  driven  before  him  in  ccnfusion  the 
force  enthusiasts  who  defended  Bothwell  Bridge.  He  could 
distinguish  among  the  hostile  ranks  that  gallant  band  which 
was  then  called,  from  the  name  of  its  colonel,  Dumbarton's 
regiment,  but  which  has  long  been  known  as  the  first  of  tht 
line,  and  which,  in  all  the  four  quarters  of  the  world,  has 
nobly  supported  its  early  reputation.  "  I  know  those  men," 
said  Monmouth ;  "  they  will  fight.  If  I  had  but  them,  all 
would  go  well ! "  * 

Yet  the  aspect  of  the  enemy  was  not  altogether  discourag- 
ing. The  three  divisions  of  the  royal  army  lay  far  apart  from 
one  another.  There  was  an  appearance  of  negligence  and 
of  relaxed  discipline  in  all  their  movements.  It  was  reported 
that  they  were  drinking  themselves  drunk  with  the  Zoyland 
cider.  The  incapacity  of  Feversham,  who  commanded  in 
chief,  was  notorious.  Even  at  this  momentous  crisis  he 
thought  only  of  eating  and  sleeping.  Churchill  was  indeed  a 
captain  equal  to  tasks  far  more  arduous  than  that  of  scattering 
a  crowd  of  ill-armed  and  ill-trained  peasants.  But  the  genius 
which,  at  a  later  period,  humbled  six  marshals  of  France,  was 
not  now  in  its  proper  place.  Feversham  told  Churchill  little, 
and  gave  him  no  encouragement  to  offer  any  suggestion.  The 
lieutenant,  conscious  of  superior  abilities  and  science,  impa- 
tient of  the  control  of  a  chief  whom  he  despised,  and  trem- 
bling for  the  fate  of  the  army,  nevertheless  preserved  his 
characteristic  self-command,  and  dissembled  his  feelings  so 
well,  that  his  submissive  alacrity  was  praised  by  Feversham 
in  a  report  made  to  the  king.t 

Monmouth,  having  observed  the  disposition  of  the  royal 
forces,  and  having  been  apprized  of  the  state  in  which  they 
were,  conceived  that  a  night  attack  might  be  attended  with 
success.  He  resolved  to  run  the  hazard,  and  preparations 
were  instantly  made. 

It  was  Sunday;  and  his  followers,  who  had,  for  the  most 
part,  been  brought  up  after  the  Puritan  fashion,  passed  a  great 
part  of  the  day  in  religious  exercises.  The  Castle  Field,  in 
which  they  were  encamped,  presented  a  spectacle  such  as, 
since  the  dissolution  of  Cromwell's  army,  England  had  never 
seen.  The  dissenting  preachers  who  had  taken  arms  against 

*  Oldmixon,  703. 

t  Churchill  to  Clfcrcndon,  July  4,  1685. 


BISTORT    OF    ENGLAND. 

Popery,  and  some  of  whom  had  probably  fought  in  the  great 
civil  war,  prayed  and  preached  in  red  coats  and  huge  jack- 
boots, with  swords  by  their  sides.  Ferguson  was  one  of  those 
who  harangued.  He  took  for  his  text  the  awful  imprecation 
by  which  the  Israelites  who  dwelt  beyond  Jordan  cleared  them 
selves  from  the  charge  ignorantly  brought  against  them  by 
their  brethren  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  "  The  Lord 
God  of  Gods,  the  Lord  God  of  Gods,  he  knoweth,  and  Israel 
he  shall  know.  If  it  be  in  rebellion,  or  if  in  transgression 
against  the  Lord,  save  us  not  this  day."  * 

That  an  attack  was  to  be  made  under  cover  of  the  night  was 
no  secret  in  Bridgewater.  The  town  was  full  of  women,  who 
had  repaired  thither  by  hundreds  from  the  surrounding  region, 
to  see  their  husbands,  sons,  lovers,  and  brothers,  once  more. 
There  were  many  sad  partings  that  day ;  and  many  parted 
never  to  meet  again.t  The  report  of  the  intended  attack 
came  to  the  ears  of  a  young  girl  who  was  zealous  for  the 
king.  Though  of  modest  character,  she  had  the  courage  to 
resolve  that  she  would  herself  bear  the  intelligence  to  Fevers- 
ham.  She  stole  out  of  Bridgewater,  and  made  her  way  to  the 
royal  camp.  But  that  camp  was  not  a  place  where  female 
innocence  could  be  safe.  Even  the  officers,  despising  alike 
the  irregular  force  to  which  they  were  opposed,  and  the  neg- 
ligent general  who  commanded  them,  had  indulged  largely  in 
wine,  and  were  ready  for  any  excess  of  licentiousness  and 
cruelty.  One  of  them  seized  the  unhappy  maiden,  refused  to 
listen  to  her  errand,  and  brutally  outraged  her.  She  fled  in 
agonies  of  rage  and  shame,  leaving  the  wicked  army  to  its 
doom  J 

And  now  the  time  for  the  great  hazard  drew  near.  The 
night  was  not  ill  suited  for  such  an  enterprise.  The  moon  was 
indeed  at  the  full,  and  the  northern  streamers  were  shining 
brilliantly.  But  the  marsh  fog  lay  so  thick  on  Sedgemoor 
that  no  object  could  be  discerned  there  at  the  distance  of  fiftyv 
paces.§ 

*  Oldmixon,  703 ;  Observator,  Aug.  1,  1685. 

t  Paschall's  Narrative  in  Key-wood's  Appendix. 

J  Kennet,  Ed.  1719,  iii.  432.  I  am  forced  to  believe  that  this 
lamentable  story  is  true.  The  bishop  declares  that  it  was  communi- 
cated to  him  in  the  year  1718  by  a  brave  officer  of  the  horse  guards, 
•who  had  fought  at  Sedgemoor,  and  who  had  himself  seen  the  poor 
girl  depart  in  an  agony  of  distress. 

§  Narrative  of  an  officer  of  the  horse  guards  in  Kennet,  Ed.  1719, 
UL  433  ;  MS.  Journal  of  the  Western  Rebellion,  kept  by  Mr.  Ed- 


478  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  clock  struck  eleven ;  and  the  duke,  with  his  bod) 
guard,  rode  out  of  the  castle.  He  was  aot  in  the  frame  ol 
mind  which  befits-one  who  is  about  to  strike  a  decisive  blow 
The  very  children  who  pressed  to  see  him  pass  observed,  and 
long  remembered,  that  his  look  was  sad  and  full  of  evil 
augury.  His  army  marched  by  a  circuitous  path,  nearly  six 
miles  in  length,  towards  the  royal  encampment  on  Sedgemoor. 
Part  of  the  route  is  to  this  day  called  War  Lane.  The  foot 
were  led  by  Monmouth  himself.  The  horse  were  confided  to 
Grey,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  some  who  remembered 
the  mishap  at  Bridport.  Orders  were  given  that  strict  silence 
should  be  preserved,  that  no  drum  should  be  beaten,  and  no 
shot  fired.  The  word  by  which  the  insurgents  were  to  recog- 
nize one  another  in  the  darkness  was  Soho.  It  had  doubtless 
been  selected  in  allusion  to  Soho  Fields  in  London,  where 
their  leader's  palace  stood.* 

At  about  one  in  the  morning  of  Monday  the  sixth  of  July, 
the  rebels  were  on  the  open  moor.  But  between  them  and  the 
enemy  lay  three  broad  ^rhines  filled  with  water  and  soft  mud. 
Two  of  these,  called  the  Black  Ditch  and  the  Langmoor 
Rhine,  Monmouth  knew  that  he  must  pass.  But,  strange  to 
say,  the  existence  of  a  trench,  called  the  Bussex  Rhine,  which 
immediately  covered  the  royal  encampment,  had  not  been 
mentioned  to  him  by  any  of  his  scouts. 

The  wains  which  carried  the  ammunition  remained  at  the 
entrance  of  the  moor.  The  horse  and  foot,  in  a  long,  narrow 
column,  passed  the  Black  Ditch  by  a  causeway.  There  was 

ward  Dummer  ;  Dryden's  Hind  and  Panther,  part  II.    The  lines  of 
Dryden  are  remarkable  :  — 

"  Such  were  the  pleasing  triumphs  of  the  sky 
For  James's  late  nocturnal  victory, 
The  pledge  of  his  almighty  patron's  love, 
The  fireworks  which  his  angels  made  above. 
I  saw  myself  the  lambent,  easy  light 
Gild  the  brown  horror  and  dispel  the  night. 
The  messenger  with  speed  the  tidings  bore, 
News  which  three  laboring  nations  did  restore ; 
But  Heaven's  own  Nuntius  was  arrived  before." 

*  It  has  been  said  by  many  writers,  and  among  them  by  Pennant 
that  the  district  in  London  called  Soho  derived  its  name  from  ths 
watchword  of  Monmouth's  army  at  Sedgemoor.  Mention  of  Soho 
Fields  will  be  found  in  books  printed  before  the  western  insurrection, 
for  example,  in  Chamberlayne's  State  of  England,  1684. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  479 

i  similar  causeway  across  the  Langmoor  Rhine  ;  but  the 
guide,  in  the  fog,  missed  his  way.  There  was  some  delay 
and  some  tumult  before  the  error  could  be  rectified.  At 
length  the  passage  was  effected  ;  but,  in  the  confusion,  a  pistol 
went  off.  Some  men  of'the  horse  guards,  who  were  on  watch, 
heard  the  report,  and  perceived  that  a  great  multitude  was 
advancing  through  the  mist.  They  fired  their  carbines,  and 
galloped  off  in  different  directions  to  give  the  alarm.  Some 
hastened  to  Weston  Zoyland,  where  the  cavalry  lay.  One 
trooper  spurred  to  the  encampment  of  the  infantry,  and  cried 
out  vehemently  that  the  enemy  was  at  hand.  The  drums  of 
Dumbarton's  regiment  beat  to  arms ;  and  the  men  got  fast 
into  their  ranks.  It  was  time ;  for  Monmouth  was  already 
drawing  up  his  army  for  action.  He  ordered  Grey  to  lead 
the  way  with  the  cavalry,  and  followed  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  infantry.  Grey  pushed  on  till  his  progress  was  unex- 
pectedly arrested  by  the  Bussex  Rhine.  On  the  opposite  side 
of  the  ditch  the  king's  foot  were  hastily  forming  in  order  of 
battle. 

"  For  whom  are  you  ?  "  called  out  an  officer  of  the  Foot 
Guards.  "  For  the  king,"  replied  a  voice  from  the  ranks  of 
the  rebel  cavalry.  "  For  which  king  ?  "  was  then  demanded. 
The  answer  was  a  shout  of  "  King  Monmouth,"  mingled  with 
the  war  cry,  which  forty  years  before  had  been  inscribed  on 
the  colors  of  the  parliamentary  regiments,  "  God  with  us." 
The  royal  troops  instantly  fired  such  a  volley  of  musketry  as 
sent  the  rebel  horse  flying  in  all  directions.  The  world  agreed 
to  ascribe  this  ignominious  rout  to  Grey's  pusillanimity.  Yet 
it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  Churchill  would  have  succeeded 
better  at  the  head  of  men  wh«  had  never  before  handled  arms 
on  horseback,  and  whose  horses  were  unused,  not  only  to 
stand  fire,  but  to  obey  the  rein. 

A  few  minutes  after  the  duke's  horse  had  dispersed  them 
selves  over  the  moor,  his  infantry  came  up,  running  fast,  anc 
guided  through  the  gloom  by  the  lighted  matches  of  Dumbar 
ton's  regiment. 

Monmouth  was  startled  by  finding  that  a  broad  and  pro- 
found trench  lay  between  him  and  the  camp  which  he  had 
hoped  to  surprise.  The  insurgents  halted  on  the  edge  of  the 
rhine,  and  fired.  Part  of  the  royal  infantry  on  the  opposite 
bank  returned  the  fire.  During  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
ihe  roar  of  the  musketry  was  incessant.  Thn  Somersetshire 


480  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

peasants  oehaved  themselves  as  if  they  had  been  veteran  sol- 
diers, save  only  that  they  levelled  their  pieces  too  high. 

But  now  the  other  divisions  of  the  royal  army  were  in 
motion.  The  Life  Guards  and  Blues  came  pricking  fast  from 
Weston  Zoyland,  and  scattered  in  an  instant  some  of  Grey's 
horse,  who  had  attempted  to  rally.  The  fugitives  spread  a 
panic  among  their  comrades  in  the  rear,  who  had  charge  of 
the  ammunition.  The  wagoners  drove  off  at  full  speed,  and 
never  stopped  till  they  were  many  miles  from  the  field  of  bat- 
tle. Monmouth  had  hitherto  done  his  part  like  a  stout  and 
able  warrior.  He  had  been  seen  on  foot,  pike  in  hand,  en- 
couraging his  infantry  by  voice  and  by  example.  But  he  was 
too  well  acquainted  with  military  affairs  not  to  know  that  all 
was  over.  His  men  had  lost  the  advantage  which  surprise 
and  darkness  had  given  them.  They  were  deserted  by  the 
horse  and  by  the  ammunition  wagons.  The  king's  forces 
were  now  united  and  in  good  order.  Feversham  had  been 
awakened  by  the  firing,  had  got  out  of  bed,  had  adjusted  his 
cravat,  had  looked  at  himself*  well  in  the  glass,  and  had  come 
to  §ee  what  his  men  were  doing.  Meanwhile,  what  was  of 
much  more  importance,  Churchill  had  rapidly  made  an  entire- 
ly new  disposition  of  the  royal  infantry.  The  day  was  about 
to  break.  The  event  of  a  conflict  on  an  open  plain,  by  broad 
sunlight,  could  not  be  doubtful.  Yet  Monmouth  should  have 
felt  that  it  was  not  for  him  to  fly  while  thousands  whom  affec- 
tion for  him  had  hurried  to  destruction  were  still  fighting  man- 
fully in  his  cause.  But  vain  hopes  and  the  intense  love  of 
life  prevailed.  He  saw  that  if  he  tarried  the  royal  cavalry 
would  soon  be  in  his  rear,  and  would  interrupt  his  retreat. 
He  mounted  and  rode  from  the  field. 

Yet  his  foot,  though  deserted,  made  a  gallant  stand.  The 
Life  Guards  attacked  them  on  the  right,  the  Blues  on  the  left ; 
but  the  Somersetshire  clowns,  with  their  scythes  and  the  butt 
ends  of  their  muskets,  faced  the  royal  horse  like  old  soldiers. 
Oglethorpe  made  a  vigorous  attempt  to  break  them,  and  was 
manfully  repulsed.  Sarsfield,  a  brave  Irish  officer,  whose 
name  afterwards  obtained  a  melancholy  celebrity,  charged  on 
the  other  flank.  His  men  were  beaten  back.  He  was  him- 
self struck  to  the  ground,  and  lay  for  a  time  as  one  dead. 
But  the  struggle  of  the  hardy  rustics  could  not  last.  Their 
powder  and  ball  were  spent.  Cries  were  heard  of  "  Ammu- 
nition !  for  God's  sake  ammunition ! "  But  no  ammunition 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  48". 

was  at  hand.  And  now  the  king's  artillery  came  up.  "It  had 
been  posted  half  a  mile  off,  on  the  high  road  from  Weston 
Zoyland  to  Bridgewater.  So  defective  were  then  the  appoint- 
ments of  an  English  army  that  there  would  have  been  much 
difficulty  in  dragging  the  great  guns  to  the  place  where  the 
batt'e  was  raging,  had  not  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  offered  his 
coach  horses  and  traces  for  the  purpose.  This  interference 
of  a  Christian  prelate  in  a  matter  of  blood  has,  with  strange 
inconsistency,  been  condemned  by  some  Whig  writers,  who 
can  set  nothing  criminal  in  the  conduct  of  the  numerous 
Puritan  ministers  then  in  arms  against  the  government.  Even 
when  the  guns  had  arrived,  there  was  such  a  want  of  gunners 
that  a  sergeant  of  Dumbarton's  regiment  was  forced  to  take 
on  himself  the  management  of  several  pieces.*  The  cannon, 
however,  though  ill  served,  brought  the  engagement  to  a 
speedy  close.  The  pikes  of  the  rebel  battalions  began  to 
shake  ;  the  ranks  broke.  The  king's  cavalry  charged  again, 
and  bore  down  every  thing  before  them.  The  king's  infantry 
came  pouring  across  the  ditch.  Even  in  that  extremity  the 
Mecdip  miners  stood  bravely  to  their  arms,  and  sold  their  lives 
dearly.  But  the  rout  was  in  a  few  minutes  complete.  Three 
hundred  of  the  soldiers  had  been  killed  or  wounded.  Of  the 
rebels  more  than  a  thousand  lay  dead  on  the  moor.t 

*  There  is  a  warrant  of  James  directing  that  forty  pounds  should 
be  paid  to  Sergeant  Weems,  of  Dumbarton's  regiment,  "  for  good  ser- 
vice in  the  action  at  Sedgemoor  in  firing  the  great  guns  against  the 
rebels."  —  Historical  Record  of  the  First  or  Royal  Regiment  of  Foot. 

t  James  the  Second's  account  of  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor  in  Lord 
Hardwicke's  State  Papers ;  "Wade's  Confession ;  Ferguson's  MS.  Nar- 
rative in  Eachard,  iii.  768 ;  Narrative  of  an  Officer  of  the  Horse 
Guards  in  Kennet,  Ed.  1719,  iii.  432  ;  London  Gazette,  July  9,  1685  ; 
Oldmixon,  703  ;  Paschall's  Narrative  ;  Burnet,  L  643  ;  Evelyn's 
Diary,  July  8 ;  Citters,  July  -fr ;  Barillon,  July  ^ ;  Reresby's  Me- 
moirs ;  the  Duke  of  Buckingham's  Battle  of  Sedgemoor,  a  Farce ; 
MS.  Journal  of  the  Western  Rebellion,  kept  by  Mr.  Edward  Dummcr, 
then  serving  in  the  train  of  artillery  employed  by  his  majesty  for  the 
suppression,  of  the  same.  The  last-mentioned  manuscript  is  in  the 
Pepysian  library,  and  is  of  the  greatest  value,  not  on  account  of  the 
rarrative,  which  contains  little  that  is  remarkable,  but  on  account  of 
the  plans,  which  exhibit  the  battle  in  four  or  five  different  stages. 

"The  history  of  a  battle,"  says  the  greatest  of  living  generals,  "is 
not  unlike  the  history  of  a  ball.  Some  individuals  may  recollect  all 
the  little  events  of  which  the  great  result  is  the  battle  won  or  lost ; 
but  no  individual  can  recollect  the  order  in  which,  or  the  exact  mo- 
ment at  which,  they  occurred,  which  makes  all  the  difference  as  to 

their  value  or  importance Just  to  show  you  how  little  reli- 

VOL.  I.  41 


482  HISTORY    OK    ENGLAND. 

So  eried  the  list  fight,  deserving  the  name  of  battle,  tha 
nas  been  fought  on  English  ground.  The  impression  left  on 
the  simple  inhabitants  of  the  neighborhood  was  deep  and  last- 
ing. That  impression,  indeed,  has  been  frequently  renewed. 
For  even  in  our  own  time  the  plough  and  the  spade  have  not 
seldom  turned  up  ghastly  memorials  of  the  slaughter,  skulls, 
and  thigh-bones,  and  strange  weapons  made  out  of  implements 
of  husbandry.  .  Old  peasants  re.ated  very  recently  that,  in  their 
childhood,  they  were  accustomed  to  play  on  the  moor  at  the 
fight  between  King  James's  men  and  King  Monmouth's  men-, 
and  that  King  Monmouth's  men  always  raised  the  cry  of 
Soho* 

ance  can  be  placed  even  on  what  are  supposed  the  best  account*  of  a 
battle,  I  mention  that  there  are  some  circumstances  mentioned  in 

General 'B  account  which  did  not  occur  as  he  relates  then*.  It  is 

impossible  to  say  when  each  important  occurrence  took  place,  nor  in 
what  order." —  Wellington  Papers,  Aug.  8  and  17,  1815. 

The  battle  concerning  which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  wrote  thus 
was  that  of  Waterloo,  fought  only  a  few  weeks  before,  by  broad  day, 
under  his  own  vigilant  and  experienced  eye.  What,  then,  must  be  the 
difficulty  of  compiling  from  twelve  or  thirteen  narratives  an  account 
of  a  battle  fought  more  than  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago  in  such 
darkness  that  not  a  man  of  those  engaged  could  see  fifty  paces  before 
him !  The  difficulty  is  aggravated  by  the  circumstance  that  those 
witnesses  who  had  the  best  opportunity  of  knowing  the  truth  were 
by  no  means  inclined  to  tell  it.  The  paper  which  I  have  placed  at  the 
head  of  my  list  of  authorities  was  evidently  drawn  up  with  extreme 
partiality  to  Feversham.  Wade  was  writing  under  the  dread  of  the 
halter.  Ferguson,  who  was  seldom  scrupulous  about  the  truth  of  his 
assertions,  lied  on  this  occasion  like  Bobadil  or  Parolles.  Oldmixon, 
who  was  a  boy  at  Bridgewater  when  the  battle  was  fought,  and  passed 
a  great  part  of  his  subsequent  life  there,  was  so  much  under  the 
influence  of  local  passions  that  his  local  information  was  useless  to 
him.  Hia  desire  to  magnify  the  valor  of  the  Somersetshire  peasants,  a 
valor  which  their  enemies  acknowledged,  and  which  did  not  need  to 
be  set  off  by  exaggeration  and  fiction,  led  him  to  compose  an  absurd 
romance.  The  eulogy  which  Barillon,  a  Frenchman  accustomed  to 
despise  raw  levies,  pronounced  on  the  vanquished  army,  is  of  much 
more  value.  "  Son  infanterie  fit  fort  bien.  On  cut  de  la  peine  &  les 
rompre,  et  les  soldats  combattoient  avec  les  crosses  de  mousquet  et  les 
•cies  qu'ilfl  avoient  au  bout  de  grands  hastens  au  lieu  de  picques." 

Little  is  now  to  be  learned  by  visiting  the  field  of  battle  ;  for  the 
face  of  the  country  has  been  greatly  changed ;  and  the  old  Bussex 
Rhine,  on  the  banks  of  which  the  great  struggle  took  place,  has  long 
disappeared. 

I  have  derived  much  assistance  from  Mr.  Boberts's  account  of  the 
battle.  Life  of  Monmouth,  chap.  xxii.  His  narrative  is  in  the  main 
confirmed  by  Dummcr's  plans. 

•  I  le»raed  these  thing*  from  persons  living  close  to  Sedgeraoor 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  483 

What  seems  most  extraordinary  in  the  battle  of  Sedgcmoor 
is,  that  the  event  should  have  been  for  a  moment  doubtful,  and 
that  the  rebels  should  have  resisted  so  long.  That  five  or 
six  thousand  colliers  and  ploughmen  should  contend  during 
an  hour  with  half  that  number  of  regular  cavalry  and  infantry 
would  now  be  thought  a  miracle.  Our  wonder  will,  perhaps, 
be  diminished  when  we  remember  that,  in  the  time  of  James 
the  Second,  the  discipline  of  the  regular  army  was  extremely 
ax,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  peasantry  were  accus- 
tomed to  serve  in  the  militia.  The  difference,  therefore,  be- 
tween a  regiment  of  foot  guards  and  a  regiment  of  clowns 
just  enrolled,  though  doubtless  considerable,  was  by  no  means 
what  it  now  is.  Monmouth  did  not  lead  a  mere  mob  to  attack 
good  soldiers.  For  his  followers  were  not  altogether  without 
a  tincture  of  soldiership  ;  and  Feversham's  troops,  when  com- 
pared with  English  troops  of  our  time,  might  almost  be  called 
a  mob. 

It  was  four  o'clock ;  the  sun  was  rising ;  and  the  routed 
army  came  pouring  into  the  streets  of  Bridge  water.  The 
uproar,  the  blood,  the  gashes,  the  ghastly  figures  which  sank 
down  and  never  rose  again,  spread  horror  and  dismay  through 
the  town.  The  pursuers,  too,  were  close  behind.  Those 
inhabitants  who  had  favored  the  insurrection  expected  sack 
and  massacre,  and  implored  the  protection  of  their  -neighbors 
who  professed  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  or  had  made  them- 
selves conspicuous  by  Tory  politics  ;  and  it  is  acknowledged 
by  the  bitterest  of  Whig  historians  that  this  protection  was 
kindly  and  generously  given.* 

During  that  day  the  conquerors  continued  to  chase  the  fugi- 
tives. The  neighboring  villagers  long  remembered  with  what 
a  clatter  of  horsehoofs  and  what  a  storm  of  curses  the  whirl- 
wind of  cavalry  swept  by.  Before  evening  five  hundred. pris- 
oners had  been  crowded  into  the  parish  church  of  Western 
Zoyland.  Eighty  of  them  were  wounded  ;  and  five  expired 
within  the  consecrated  walls.  Great  numbers  of  laborers  were 
impressed  for  the  purpose  of  burying  the  slain.  A  few  who 
were  notoriously  partial  to  the  vanquished  side  were  set  apart 
for  the  hideous  office  of  quartering  the  captives.  The  tithing 
men  of  the  neighboring  parishes  were  busied  in  setting  up  gib- 
bets and  providing  chains.  All  this  while  the  bells  of  Wes  on 
Zoyland  and  Chedzoy  rang  joyously,  and  the  soldiers  sang  and 

•  Oldmixon,  704. 


484  HISTORY  or  ENGLAND. 

rioted  on  the  moor  amidst  the  corpses.  For  the  farmers  of 
the  neighborhood  had  made  haste,  as  soon  as  the  event  of  the 
fight  was  known,  to  send  hogsheads  of  their  best  cider  as 
peace  offerings  to  the  victors.* 

Feversham  passed  for  a  good  natured  man ;  but  he  was  a 
foreigner,  ignorant  of  the  laws  and  careless  of  the  feelings 
of  the  English.  He  was  accustomed  to  the  military  license 
of  France,  and  had  learned  from  his  great  kinsman,  the  con- 
queror of  the  Palatinate,  not  indeed  how  to  conquer,  but  how 
to  devastate.  A  considerable  number  of  prisoners  were  im- 
mediately selected  for  execution.  Among  them  was  a  youth 
famous  for  his  speed.  Hopes  were  held  out  to  him  that  his 
life  would  be  spared  if  he  could  run  a  race  with  one  of  the 
colts  of  the  marsh.  The  space  through  which  the  man  kept 
up  with  the  horse  is  still  marked  by  well-known  bounds  in 
the  moor,  and  is  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile.  Feversham 
was  not  ashamed,  after  seeing  the  performance,  to  send  the 
wretched  performer  to  the  gallows.  The  next  day  a  long  line 
of  gibbets  appeared  on  the  road  leading  from  Bridgewater  to 
Weston  Zoyland.  On  each  gibbet  a  prisoner  was  suspended. 
Four  of  the  sufferers  were  left  to  rot  in  irons.t 

Meanwhile  Monmouth,  accompanied  by  Grey,  by  Buyse, 
and  by  a  few  other  friends,  was  flying  from  the  field  of  battle. 
At  Chedzoy  he  stopped  a  moment  to  mount  a  fresh  horse  and 
to  hide  his  blue  ribbon  and  his  George.  He  then  hastened 
towards  the  Bristol  Channel.  From  the  rising  ground  on  the 
north  of  the  field  of  battle  he  saw  the  flash  and  the  smoke 
of  the  last  volley  fired  by  his  deserted  followers.  Before  six 
o'clock  he  was  twenty  miles  from  Sedgemoor.  Some  of  his 
companions  advised  him  to  cross  the  water,  and  to  seek  ref- 
uge in  Wales  ;  and  this  would  undoubtedly  have  been  his  wisest 
course.  He  would  have  been  in  Wales  long  before  the  news 
of  his  defeat  was  known  there  ;  and,  in  a  country  so  wild  and 
so  remote  from  the  seat  of  government,  might  have  remained 
long  undiscovered.  He  determined,  however,  10  push  for 
Hampshire,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  lurk  in  the  cabins  of 
deer  stealers  among  the  oaks  of  the  New  Forest,  till  meufna 
of  conveyance  to  the  Continent  could  be  procured.  He 
Jierefore,  with  Grey  and  the  German,  turned  to  the  south- 


•  Locke's  Western  Rebellion ;  Stradling's  Chilton  Priory, 
t  Locke's  Western  Rebellion ;   Stradling's  Chilton   Priory ;   Old 
luixon,  704. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  485 

east.  But  the  way  was  beset  with  dangers.  The  three 
fugitives  had  to  traverse  a  country  in  which  every  one  already 
knew  the  event  of  the  battle,  and  in  which  no  traveller  of 
suspicious  appearance  could  escape  a  close  scrutiny.  They 
rode  on  all  day  shunning  towns  and  villages.  Nor  was  this 
so  difficult  as  it  may  now  appear.  For  men  then  living  could 
remember  the  time  when  the  wild  deer  ranged  freely  through 
a  succession  of  forests  from  the  banks  of  tne  Avon  in  Wilt- 
shire to  the  southern  coast  of  Hampshire.*  At  length,  on 
Cranbourne  Chase,  the  strength  of  the  horses  failed.  They 
were  therefore  turned  loose.  The  bridles  and  saddles  were 
concealed.  Monmouth  and  his  friends  disguised  themselves 
as  countrymen,  and  proceeded  on  foot  towards  the  New 
Forest.  They  passed  the  night  in  the  open  air ;  but  before 
morning  they  were  surrounded  on  every  side  by  toils.  Lord 
Lumley,  who  lay  at  Ringwood  with  a  strong  body  of  the 
Sussex  militia,  had  sent  forth  parties  in  every  direction.  Sir 
William  Portman,  with  the  Somerset  militia,  had  formed  a 
chain  of  posts  from  the  sea  to  the  northern  extremity  of  Dor- 
set. At  five  in  the  morning  of  the  seventh,  Grey  was  seized 
by  two  of  Lumley's  scouts.  He  submitted  to  his  fate  with 
the  calmness  of  one  to  whom  suspense  was  more  intolerable 
than  despair.  "  Since  we  landed,"  he  said,  "  I  have  not  had 
one  comfortable  meal  or  one  quiet  night,"  It  could  hardly 
be  doubted  that  the  chief  rebel  was  not  far  off.  The  pur- 
suers redoubled  their  vigilance  and  activity.  The  cottages 
scattered  over  the  heathy  country  on  the  boundaries  of  Dor- 
setshire and  Hampshire  were  strictly  examined  by  Lumley  ; 
and  the  clown  with  whom  Monmouth  had  changed  clothes 
was  discovered.  Portman  came  with  a  strong  body  of  horse 
and  foot  to  assist  in  the  search.  Attention  was  soon  drawn  to 
a  place  well  fitted  to  shelter  fugitives.  It  was  an  extensive 
tract  of  land  separated  by  an  enclosure  from  the  open^  country, 
and  divided  by  numerous  hedges  into  small  fields.  In  some 
of  these  fields  the  rye,  the  pease,  and  the  oats  were  high 
enough  to  conceal  a  man.  Others  were  overgrown  by  fern 
and  brambles.  A  poor  woman  reported  that  she  had  seen 
two  strangers  lurking  in  this  covert.  The  near  prospect  of 
reward  animated  the  zeal  of  the  troops.  It  was  agreed  tha 
every  man  who  did  his  duty  in  the  search  should  have  a  share 
of  the  promised  five  thousand  pounds.  The  outer  fence  waa 

*  Aubrey's  Natural  History  of  Wiltshire,  1691. 

41  * 


486  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

strictly  guarded  ;  the  space  within  was  examined  with  indefa* 
igable  diligence  ;  and  several  dogs  of  quick  scent  were  turned 
out  among  the  bushes.  The  day  closed  before  the  search 
could  be  completed  ;  but  careful  watch  was  kept  all  night. 
Thirty  times  the  fugitives  ventured  to  look  through  the  outer 
hedge ;  but  every  where  they  found  a  sentinel  on  the  alert ; 
once  they  were  seen  and  fired  at ;  they  then  separated  and 
concealed  themselves  in  different  hiding-places. 

At  sunrise  the  next  morning  the  search  recommenced,  and 
Buyse  was  found.  He  owned  that  he  had  parted  from  the 
duke  only  a  few  hours  before.  The  corn  and  copsewood 
were  now  beaten  with  more  care  than  ever.  At  length  a  gaunt 
figure  was  discovered  hidden  in  a  ditch.  The  pursuers  sprang 
on  their  prey.  Some  of  them  were  about  to  fire  ;  but  Port- 
man  forbade  all  violence.  The  prisoner's  dress  was  that  of  a 
shepherd ;  his  beard,  prematurely  gray,  was  of  several  days' 
growth.  He  trembled  greatly,  and  was  unable  to  speak. 
Even  those  who  had  often  seen  him  were  at  first  in  doubt 
whether  this  were  truly  the  brilliant  and  vgraceful  Monmouth. 
His  pockets  were  searched  by  Portman,  and  in  them  were 
found,  among  some  raw  pease  gathered  in  the  rage  of  hunger, 
a  watch,  a  purse  of  gold,  a  small  treatise  on  fortification,  an 
album  filled  with  songs,  receipts,  prayers,  and  charms,  and 
the  George  with  which,  many  years  before,  King  Charles 
the  Second  had  decorated  his  favorite  son.  Messengers 
were  instantly  despatched  to  Whitehall  with  the  good  news, 
and  with  the  George  as  a  token  that  the  news  was  true. 
The  prisoner  was  conveyed  under  a  strong  guard  to  Ring- 
wood.* 

And  all  was  lost ;  and  nothing  remained  but  that  he  sh  :>uld 
prepare  to  meet  death  as  became  one»who  had  thought  him- 
self not  unworthy  to  wear  the  crown  of  William  the  Conqueror 
and  of  Richard  the  Lion-hearted,  of  the  hero  of  Cressy  and  of 
the  hero  of  Agincourt.  The  captive  might  easily  have  called  to 
mind  other  domestic  examples, still  better  suited  to  his  condition. 
Within  a  hundred  years,  two  sovereigns  whose  blood  ran  in 
his  veins,  one  of  them  a  delicate  woman,  had  been  placed  in 
the  same  situation  in  which  he  now  stood.  They  had  shown 

•  Account  of  the  Manner  of  taking  the  late  Duke  of  Monmouth, 
published  by  his  Majesty's  command.  Gazette  de  France,  July  £-§ , 
1685;  Eachard,  iii.  770;  Burnet,  i.  644,  and  Dartmouth's  note;  C'it- 
texs's,  July  £fl,  1W5. 


HISTORY    OF    KNOLAND.  4S? 

in  tho  prison  and  on  the  scaffold,  a  heroism  of  which,  in  the 
season  6f  prosperity,  they  had  seemed  incapable,  and  had 
half  redeemed  great  crimes  and  errors  by  enduring  with 
Christian  meekness  and  princely  dignity  all  that  victorious 
enemies  could  inflict.  Of  cowardice  Monmouth  had  never 
been  accused ;  and,  even  had  he  been  wanting  in  constitu- 
tional courage,  it  might  have  been  expected  that  the  defed 
would  be  supplied  by  pride  and  by  despair.  The  eyes  of  th<» 
whole  world  were  upon  him.  The  latest  generations  would 
know  how,  in  that  extremity,  he  had  borne  himself.  To  the 
brave  peasants  of  the  west  he  owed  it  to  show  that  they  had 
not  poured  forth  their  blood  for  a  leader  unworthy  of  their 
attachment  To  her  who  had  sacrificed  every  thing  for  his 
sake  he  owed  it  so  to  bear  himself  that,  though  she  might 
weep  for  him,  she  should  not  blush  for  him.  It  was  not  for 
him  to  lament  and  supplicate.  His  reason,  too,  should  have 
told  him  that  lamentation  and  supplication  would  be  unavailing. 
He  had  done  that  which  could  never  be  forgiven.  He  was 
in  the  grasp  of  one  who  never  forgave. 

But  the  fortitude  of  Monmouth  was  not  that  highest  sort 
of  fortitude  which  is  derived  from  reflection  and  from  self- 
respect  ;  nor  had  nature  given  him  one  of  those  stout  hearts 
from  which  neither  adversity  nor  peril  can  extort  any  sign 
of  weakness.  His  courage  rose  and  fell  with  his  animal 
spirits.,  It  was  sustained  on  the  field  of  battle  by  the  excite- 
ment of  action,  by  the  hope  of  victory,  by  the  strange 
influence  of  sympathy.  All  such  aids  were  now  taken  away. 
The  spoiled  darling  of  the  court  and  of  the  populace,  accustomed 
to  be  loved  and  worshipped  wherever  he  appeared,  was  now 
surrounded  by  stern  jailers  in  whose  eyes  he  read  his  doom. 
Yet  a  few  hours  of  gloomy  seclusion,  and  he  must  die  a 
violent  and  shameful  death.  His  heart  sank  within  him. 
Life  seemed  to  be  worth  purchasing  by  any  humiliation ; 
nor  could  his  mind,  always  feeble,  and  now  distracted  by 
terror,  perceive  that  humiliation'  must  degrade,  but  could  not 
save  him. 

As  soon  as  he  reached  Ringwood  he  wrote  to  the  king. 
The  letter  was  that  of  a  man  whom  a  craven  fear  had  made 
insensible  to  shame.  He  professed  in  vehement  terms  his  re- 
morse for  his  treason.  He  affirmed  that,  when  he  promised  his 
cousins  at  the  Hague  not  to  raise  troubles  in  England,  he  had 
fully  meant  to  keep  his  word.  Unhappily  he  had  afterwards 
been  seduced  from  his  allegiance  by  some  horrid  people  who  had 


488  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

heated  his  mind  by  calumnies  and  misled  him  by  sophi'  y 
but  now  he  abhorred  them  ;  he  abhorred  himself.  He  b&gged 
in  piteous  terms  that  he  might  be  admitted  to  the  royal  pres- 
ence. There  was  a  secret  which  he  could  not  trust  to  paper, 
a  secret  which  lay  in  a  single  word,  and  which,  if  he  spoke 
that  word,  would  secure  the  throne  against  all  danger.  On 
the  following  day  he  despatched  letters,  imploring  the  queen 
dovviger  and  the  lord  treasurer  to  intercede  in  his  behalf.* 

When  it  was  known  in  London  how  he  had  abased  him- 
self the  general  surprise  was  great ;  and  no  man  was  more 
amazed  than  Barillon,  who  had  resided  in  England  during 
two  bloody  proscriptions,  and  had  seen  numerous  victims, 
both  of  the  opposition  and  of  the  court,  submit  to  their  fate 
without  womanish  entreaties  and  lamentations.t 

Monmouth  and  Grey  remained  at  Ringwood  two  days. 
They  were  then  carried  up  to  London,  under  the  guard  of  a 
large  body  of  regular  troops  and  militia.  In  the  coach  with 
the  duke  was  an  officer  whose  orders  were  to  stab  the  prisoner 
if  a  rescue  were  attempted.  At  every  town  along  the  road 
the  trainbands  of  the  neighborhood  had  been  mustered  under 
the  command  of  the  principal  gentry.  The  march  lasted  three 
days,  and  terminated  at  Vauxhall,  where  a  regiment  command- 
ed by  George  Legge,  Lord  Dartmouth,  was  in  readiness  to 
receive  the  prisoners.  They  were  put  on  board  of  a  state 
barge,  and  carried  down  the  river  to  Whitehall  Stairs.  ,Lum- 
ley  and  Portman  had  alternately  watched  the  duke  day  and 
night  till  they  had  brought  him  within  the  walls  of  the 
palace.J 

Both  the  demeanor  of  Monmouth  and  that  of  Grey,  during 
the  journey,  filled  all  observers  with  surprise.  Monmouth 
was  altogether  unnerved.  Grey  was  not  only  calm  but 
cheerful,  talked  pleasantly  of  horses,  dogs,  and  field  sports, 
and  even  made  jocose  allusions  to  the  perilous  situation  in 
which  he  stood. 

The  king  cannot  be  blamed  for  determining  that  Monmouth 

*  The  letter  to  the  king  -was  printed  at  the  time  by  authority  ;  that 
to  the  queen  dowager  will  be  found  in  Sir  H.  Ellis's  Original  Letters  > 
that  to  Rochester  in  the  Clarendon  Correspondence. 

t  "  On  trouve,"  he  wrote,  "  fort  a  redire  icy  qu'il  ayt  fait  une  chose 
fci  peu  ordinaire  aux  Anglois."  July  £$,  1685. 

I  Account  of  the  Manner  of  taking  the  Duke  of  Monmouth :  6« 
eette,  July  16,  1685 ;  Cittern,  July  %%. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  489 

should  suffer  death.  Every  man  who  heads  a  rebellion  agaiusl 
an  established  government  stakes  his  life  on  the  event ;  and 
rebellion  was  the  smallest  part  of  Monmouth's  crime.  He 
had  declared  against  his  uncle  a  war  without  quarter.  In  the 
manifesto  put  forth  at  Lynie,  James  had  been  held  up  to  exe- 
cration as  an  incendiary,  as  an  assassin  who  had  strangled  one 
innocent  man  and  cut  the  throat  of  another,  and,  lastly,  as  the 
poisoner  of  his  own  brother.  To  spare  an  enemy  who  had 
not  scrupled  to  resort  to  such  extremities  would  have  been  an 
act  of  rare,  perhaps  of  blamable  generosity.  But  to  see  him 
and  not  to  spare  him  was  an  outrage  on  humanity  and  decen- 
cy.* This  outrage  the  king  resolved  to  commit.  The  arms 
of  the  prisoner  were  bound  behind  him  with  a  silken  cord ; 
and,  thus  secured,  lie  was  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the 
implacable  kinsman  whom  he  had  wronged. 

Then  Monmouth  threw  himself  on  the  ground,  and  crawled 
to  the  king's  feet.  He  wept.  '  He  tried  to  embrace  his  uncle's 
knees  with  his  pinioned  arms.  He  begged  for  life,  only  life, 
life  at  any  price.  He  owned  that  he  had  been  guilty  of  a 
great  crime,  but  tried  to  throw  the  blame  on  others,  particu- 
larly on  Argyle,  who  would  rather  have  put  his  legs  into  the 
boots  than  have  saved  his  own  life  by  such  baseness.  By  the 
ties  of  kindred,  by  the  memory  of  the  late  king,  who  had  been 
the  best  and  truest  of  brothers,  the  unhappy  man  adjured 
Jarnes  to  show  some  mercy.  James  gravely  replied  that  this 
repentance  was  of  the  latest,  that  he  was  sorry  for  the  misery 
which  the  prisoner  had  brought  on  himself,  but  that  the  case 
was  not  one  for  lenity.  A  declaration,  filled  with  atrocious 
calumnies,  had  been  put  forth.  The  regal  title  had  been  as- 
sumed. For  treasons  so  aggravated  there  could  be  no  pardon 
on  this  side  of  the  grave.  The  poor  terrified  duke  vowed  that 
he  had  never  wished  to  take  the  crown,  but  had  been  led  into 
that  fatal  error  by  others.  As  to  the  Declaration,  he  had  not 
written  it.  He  had  not  read  it.  He  had  signed  it  without 
looking  at  it.  It  was  all  the  work  of  Ferguson,  that  bloody 
villain  Ferguson.  "  Do  you  expect  me  to  believe,"  said 
James,  with  contempt  bat  too  well  merited,  "that  you  so 
vour  hand  to  a  paper  of  such  moment  without  knowing  wha 
it  contained  ? "  One  depth  of  infamy  only  remained ;  and 

*  Barillon  was  evidently  much  shocked.  "  n  sc  vient,'  he  says, 
"  de  passer  icy  une  chose  bien  extraordinaire  et  fort  opposee  a  1*  isage 
ordinaire  des  autres  nations."  July  £§,  1685. 

41* 


490  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

even  to  that  the  prisoner  descended.  He  was  preeminently 
the  champion  of  the  Protestant  religion.  The  interest  of  that 
religion  had  been  his  plea  for  conspiring  against  the  gov- 
ernment of  his  father,  and  for  bringing  on  his  country  the 
miseries  of  civil  war :  yet  he  was  not  ashamed  to  hint  that  he 
was  inclined  to  be  reconciled  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  The 
king  eagerly  offered  him  spiritual  assistance,  but  said  nothing 
)f  pardon  or  respite.  "  Is  there  no  hope  ?  "  asked  Monmouth. 
lames  turned  away  in  silence.  Then  Monmouth  strove  to 
rally  his  courage,  rose  from  his  knees,  and  retired  with  a  firm- 
ness which  he  had  not  shown  since  his  overthrow.* 

Grey  was  introduced  next.  He  behaved  with  a  propriety 
and  fortitude  which  moved  even  the  stern  and  resentful  king, 
frankly  owned  himself  guilty,  made  no  excuses,  and  did  no1. 
once  stoop  to  ask  his  life.  Both  the  prisoners  were  sent  to  the 
Tower  by  water.  There  was  no  tumult ;  but  many  thousands 
of  people,  with  anxiety  and  sorrow  in  their  faces,  tried  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  captives.  The  duke's  resolution  failed  as  soon 
as  he  had  left  the  royal  presence.  On  his  way  to  his  prison  he 
bemoaned  himself,  accused  his  followers,  and  abjectly  implored 
the  intercession  of  Dartmouth.  "  I  know,  my  lord,  that  you 
loved  my  father.  For  his  sake,  for  God's  sake,  try  if  there 
be  any  room  for  mercy."  Dartmouth  replied  that  the  king 
had  spoken  the  truth,  and  that  a  subject  who  assumed  the 
regal  title  excluded  himself  from  all  hope  of  pardon. t 

Soon  after  Monmouth  had  been  lodged  in  the  Tower,  he 
was  informed  that  his  wife  had,  by  the  royal  command,  been 
sent  to  see  him.  She  was  accompanied  by  the  Earl  of  Clar- 
endon, Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal.  Her  husband  received 
her  very  coldly,  and  addressed  almost  all  his  discourse  to 
Clarendon,  whose  intercession  he  earnestly  implored.  Claren- 
don held  out  no  hopes ;  and  that  same  evening  two  prelates, 
Turner,  Bishop  of  Ely,  and  Ken,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells, 
.arrived  at  the  Tower  with  a  solemn  message  from  the  king. 
It  was  Monday  night.  On  Wednesday  morning  Monmouth 
was  to  die.  He  was  greatly  agitated.  The  blood  left  his 
Checks ;  and  it  was  some  time  before  he  could  speak.  Most 

*  Bumet,  i.  044  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  July  15  ;  Sir  J.  Bramaton's  Me- 
moirs ;  Iteresby's  Memoirs  ;  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  July  14, 
1685  ;  Barillon,  July  £f  ;  Buccleuch  MS. 

t  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  July  14,  1685 ;  Dutch  despatch 
of  the  name  date ;  Luttrcll's  Diary;  Dartmouth's  note  on  Burnet,  i. 
646. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND,  491 

of  the  short  time  which  remained  to  him  he  'vasted  in  vain, 
attempts  to  obtain,  if  not  a  pardon,  at  least  a  resp  te.  He  wrote 
piteous  letters  to  the  king  and  to  several  courtiers,  but  in  vain. 
Some  Catholic  divines  were  sent  to  him  from  court.  But  they 
soon  discovered  that,  though  he  would  gladly  have  purchased 
his  life  by  renouncing  the  religion  of  which  he  had  professed 
himself  in  an  especial  manner  the  defender,  yet,  if  he  was  to 
die,  he  would  as  soon  die  without  their  absolution  as  with  it.* 

Nor  were  Ken  and  Turner  much  better  pleased  with  his 
frame  of  mind.  The  doctrine  of  non-resistance  was,  in  their 
view,  as' in  the  view  of  most  of  their  brethren,  the  distinguish- 
ing badge  of  the  Anglican  Church.  The  two  bishops  insisted 
on  Monmouth's  owning  that,  in  drawing  the  sword  against  the 
government,  he  had  committed  a  great  sin  ;  and,  on  this  point, 
they  found  him  obstinately  heterodox.  Nor  was  this  his  only 
heresy.  He  maintained  that  his  connection  with  Lady  Went- 
worth  was  blameless  in  the  sight  of  God.  He  had  beer 
married,  he  said,  when  a  child.  He  had  never  cared  for  hi  * 
duchess.  The  happiness  which  he  had  not  found  at  home  he 
had  sought  in  a  round  of  loose  amours,  condemned  by  religion 
and  morality.  Henrietta  had  reclaimed  him  from  a  life'bf 
vice.  To  her  he  had  been  strictly  constant.  They  had,  by  com- 
mon consent,  offered  up  fervent  prayers  for  the  divine  guidance. 
After  those  prayers  they  had  found  their  affection  for  each 
other  strengthened ;  and  they  could  then  no  longer  doubt 
that,  in  the  sight  of  God,  they  were  a  wedded  pair.  The 
bishops  were  so  much  scandalized  by  this  view  of  the  conjugal 
relation  that  they  refused  to  administer  the  sacrament  to  the 
prisoner.  All  that  they  could  obtain  from  him  was  a  promise 
that,  during  the  single  night  which  still  remained  to  him,  he 
would  pray  to  be  enlightened  if  he  were  in  error. 

On  the  Wednesday  morning,  at  his  particular  request, 
Doctor  Thomas  Tennison,  who  then  held  the  vicarage  of  Saint 
Martin's,  and,  in  that  important  cure,  had  obtained  the  high 
esteem  of  the  public,  came  to  the  Tower.  From  Tennison, 
whose  opinions  were  known  to  be  moderate,  the  duke  expected 
more  indulgence  than  Ken  and  Turner  were  disposed  to  show. 
But  Tennison,  whatever  might  be  his  views  concerning  non- 
resistance  in  the  abstract,  thought  the  late  rebellion  rash  and 
wicked,  and  considered  Monmouth's  notion  respecting  mar- 

*  Buccleuch  MS. ;  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  37  Orig 
Mem. ;  Citters,  July  £|-,  1685  ;  Gazett<  do  Frame,  Aug.  ^j-. 


492  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

riage  as  a  most  dangerous  delusion.  Monmouth  was  obstinate. 
He  had  prayed,  he  said,  for  the  divine  direction.  His  senti- 
itents  remained  unchanged ;  and  he  could  not  doubt  that  they 
were  correct.  Tennison's  exhortations  were  :'.n  a  milder  tone 
than  those  of  the  bishops.  But  he,  like  them  thought  that  he 
should  not  be  justified  'in  administering  the  Eucharist  to  one 
whose  penitence  was  of  so  unsatisfactory  a  nature.* 

The  hour  drew  near ;  all  hope  was  over ;  and  Monmouth 
had  passed  from  pusillanimous  fear  to  the  apathy  of  despair. 
His  children  were  brought  to  his  room  that  he  might  take 
leave  of  them,  and  were  followed  by  his  wife.  He  spoke  to 
her  kindly,  but  without  emotion.  Though  she  was  a  woman 
of  great  strength  of  mind,  and  had  little  cause  to  love  him, 
her  misery  was  such  that  none  of  the  bystanders  could  refrain 
from  weeping.  He  alone  was  unmoved.t 

It  was  ten  o'clock.  The  coach  of  the  lieutenant  of  the 
Tower  was  ready.  Monmouth  requested  his  spiritual  advisers 
to  accompany  him  to  the  scaffold  ;  and  they  consented ;  but 
they  told  him  that,  in  their  judgment,  he  was  about  to  die  in 
a  perilous  state  of  mind,  and  that,  if  they  attended  him,  it 
would  be  their  duty  to  exhort  him  to  the  last.  As  he  passed 
along  the  ranks  of  the  guards  he  saluted  them  with  a  smile, 
and  mounted  the  scaffold  with  a  firm  tread.  Tower  Hill  was 
covered  up  to  the  chimney  tops  with  an  innumerable  multi- 
tude of  gazers,  who,  in  awful  silence,  broken  only  by  sighs 
and  the  noise  of  weeping,  listened  for  the  last  accents  of  the 
darling  of  the  people.  "  I  shall  say  little,"  he  began.  "  I 
come  here,  not  to  speak,  but  to  die.  I  die  a  Protestant  of  the 
Church  of  England."  The  bishops  interrupted  him,  and  told 
him  that,  unless  he  acknowledged  resistance  to  be  sinful,  he 
was  no  member  of  their  church.  He  went  on  to  speak  of  his 
Henrietta.  She  was,  he  said,  a  young  lady  of  virtue  and 
honor.  He  loved  her  to  the  last,  and  he  could  not  die  without 
giving  utterance  to  his  feelings.  The  bishops  again  interfered, 
and  begged  him  not  to  use  such  language.  Some  altercation 
followed.  The  divines  have  been  accused  of  dealing  harshly 
with  the  dying  man.  But  they  appear  to  have  only  discharged 
what,  in  their  view,  was  a  sacred  duty.  Monmouth  krjew 
their  principles,  and,  if  he  wished  to  avoid  their  importunity, 

»  Buccleuch  MS. ;  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  37,  38 ; 
Orig.  Mem. ;  Burnet,  i.  645 ;  Ttnniaon's  account  in  Rennet,  iii.  432. 
Ed.  1719. 

t  Buccleuch  MS. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  493 

should  have  dispensed  with  their  attendance.  Their  general 
arguments  against  resistance  had  no  effect  on  him.  But  when 
they  reminded  him  of  the  ruin  which  he  had  brought  on  his 
brave  and  loving  followers,  of  the  blood  which  had  been  shed, 
of  the  souls  which  had  been  sent  unprepared  to  the  great 
account,  he  was  touched,  and  said,  in  a  softened  voice,  "  I  do 
own  that.  I  am  sorry  that  it  ever  happened."  They  prayed 
with  him  long  and  fervently ;  and  he  joined  in  their  petitions 
till  they  invoked  a  blessing  on  the  king.  He  remained  silent 
'  Sir,"  said  one  of  the  assistants,  "  do  you  not  pray  for  the 
king  with  us  ?  "  Monmouth  paused  some  time,  and,  after  an 
internal  struggle,  exclaimed,  "  Amen."  But  it  was  in  vain 
that  the  prelates  implored  him  to  address  to  the  soldiers  and 
to'  the  people  a  few  words  on  the  duty  of  obedience  to  the 
government.  "  I  will  make  no  speeches,"  he  exclaimed. 
"  Only  ten  words,  my  lord."  He  turned  away,  called  his 
servant,  and  put  into  the  man's  hand  a  toothpick  case,  the  last 
token  of  ill-starred  love.  "  Give  it,"  he  said,  "  to  that  per- 
son." He  then  accosted  John  Ketch,  the  executioner,  a  wretch 
who  had  butchered  many  brave  and  noble  victims,  and  whose 
name  has,  during  a  century  and  a  half,  been  vulgarly  given  to 
all  who  have  succeeded  him  in  his  odious  office.*  "  Here," 
said  the  duke,  "  are  six  guineas  for  you.  Do  not  hack  me  as 
you  did  my  Lord  Russell.  I  have  heard  that  you  struck  him 
three  or  four  times.  My  servant  wHl  give  you  some  more  gold 
if  you  do  the  work  well."  He  then  undressed,  felt  the  edge 
of  the  axe,  expressed  some  fear  that  it  was  not  sharp  enough, 
and  laid  his  head  on  the  block.  The  divines  in  the  mean  time 
continued  to  ejaculate  with  great  energy ;  "  God  accept  your 
repentance ;  God  accept  your  imperfect  repentance." 

The  hangman  addressed  himself  to  his  office.  But  he  had 
been  disconcerted  by  what  the  duke  had  said.  The  first  blow 
inflicted  only  a  slight  wound.  The  duke  struggled,  rose  from 
the  block,  and  looked  reproachfully  at  the  executioner.  -  The 

*  The  name  of  Ketch  was  often  associated  with  that  of  Jeffreys  in 
the  lampoons  of  those  days. 

"  While  Jeffreys  on  the  bench,  Ketch  on  the  gibbet  sits," 
says  one  poet.  In  the  year  which  followed  Monmouth's  execution 
Ketch  was  turned  out  of  his  office  for  insulting  one  of  the  sheriffs, 
and  was  succeeded  by  a  btitcher  named  Rose.  But  in  four  months 
Rose  himself  was  hanged  at  Tyburn,  and  Ketch  was  reinstated.  Lut- 
trell's  Diary,  Jan.  20,  and  May  28,  1686.  See  a  curious  note  by  Pr. 
Grey,  on  Hudibras,  part  iii.  canto  ii.  line  1534. 

VOL.  i.  42 


494  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

head*  sank  down  once  more.  The  stroke  was  repeated  again 
and  again ;  but  still  the  neck  was  not  severed,  and  the  body 
continued  to  move.  Yells  of  rage  and  horror  rose  from  the 
crowd.  Ketch  flung  down  the  axe  with  a  curse.  "  I  cannot 
do  it,"  he  said ;  "  my  heart  fails  me."  "  Take  up  the  axe, 
man,"  cried  the  sheriff.  "  Fling  him  over  the  rails,"  roared 
the  mob.  At  length  the  axe  was  taken  up.  Two  more  blows 
extinguished  the  last  remains  of  life  ;  but  a  knife  was  used  to 
separate  the  head  from  the  shoulders.  The  crowd  was  wrought 
up  to  such  an  ecstasy  of  rage  that  the  executioner  was  in  dan- 
ger of  being  torn  in  pieces,  and  was  conveyed  away  under  a 
strong  guard.* 

In  the  mean  time  many  handkerchiefs  were  dipped  in  the 
duke's  blood ;  for  by  a  large  part  of  the  multitude  he  was  re- 
garded as  a  martyr  who  had  died  for  the  Protestant  religion. 
The  head  and  body  were  placed  in  a  coffin  covered  with  black 
velvet,  and  were  laid  privately  under  the  communion  table  of 
St.  Peter's  Chapel  in  the  Tower.  Within  four  years  the  pave- 
ment of  that  chancel  was  again  disturbed,  and  hard  by  the 
remains  of  Monmouth  were  laid  the  remains  of  Jeffreys.  In 
truth  there  is  no  sadder  spot  on  the  earth  than  that  little  cem- 
etery. Death  is  there  associated,  not,  as  in  Westminster 
Abbey  and  Saint  Paul's,  with  genius  and  virtue,  with  public 
veneration  and  with  imperishable  renown ;  not,  as  in  our  hum- 
blest churches  and  churchyards,  with  every  thing  that  is  most 
endearing  in  social  and  domestic  charities  ;  but  with  whatever 
is  darkest  in  human  nature  and  in  human  destiny,  with  the 
savage  triumph  of  implacable  enemies,  with  the  inconstancy, 
the  ingratitude,  the  cowardice  of  friends,  with  all  the  miseries 
of  fallen  greatness  and  of  blighted  fame.  Thither  have  been 
carried,  through  successive  ages,  by  the  rude  hands  of  jailers, 
without  one  mourner  following,  the  bleeding  relics  of  men  who 
had  been  the  captains  of  armies,  the  leaders  of  parties,  the 
oracles  of  senates,  and  the  ornaments  of  courts.  Thither  was 
borne,  before  the  window  where  Jane  Grey  was  praying,  the 
mangled  corpse  of  Guilford  Dudley.  Edward  Seymour,  Duko 
of  Somerset,  and  Protector  of  the  realm,  reposes  there  by  the 
brother  whom  he  murdered.  There  has  mouldered  away  the 
headless  trunk  of  John  Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester  and  Car- 

*  Account  of  the  execution  of  Monmouth,  signed  by  the  divines 
who  attended  him.  Buccleuch  MS. ;  Burnet,  L  646  ;  Citters,  July 
Jhy,  1685  ;  Luttrell's  Diary  ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  July  15  ;  Barillon, 
July  H- 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  496 

dinal  of  Saint  Vitalis,  a  man  worthy  to  have  lived  in  a  better 
age,  and  to  have  died  in  a  better  cause.  There  are  laid  John 
Dudley,  Duke  of  Northumberland,  Lord  High  Admiral,  and 
Thomas  Cromwell,  Earl  of  Essex,  Lord  High  Treasurer. 
There,  too,  is  another  Essex,  on  whom  nature  and  fortune  had 
lavished  all  their  bounties  in  vain,  and  whom  valor,  grace, 
genius,  royal  favor,  popular  applause,  conducted  to  an  early 
and  ignominious  doom.  Not  far  off  sleep  two  chiefs  of  the 
great  house  of  Howard,  Thomas,  fourth  Duke  of  Norfolk,  and 
Philip,  eleventh  Earl  of  Arundel.  Here  and  there,  among  the 
thick  graves  of  unquiet  and  aspiring  statesmen,  lie  more  deli- 
cate sufferers ;  Margaret  of  Salisbury,  the  last  of  the  proud 
name  of  Plantagenet,  and  those  two  fair  queens  who  perished 
by  the  jealous  rage  of  Henry.  Such  was  the  dust  with  which 
the  dust  of  Monmouth  mingled.* 

Yet  a  few  months,  and  the  quiet  village  of  Toddington,  in 
Bedfordshire,  witnessed  a  still  sadder  funeral.  Near  that  vil- 
lage stood  an  ancient  and  stately  hall,  the  seat  of  the  Went- 
worths.  The  transept  of  the  parish  church  had  long  been  their 
burial-place.  To  that  burial-place,  in  the  spring  which  fol- 
lowed the  death  of  Monmouth,  was  borne  the  coffin  of  the 
young  Baroness  Wentworth  of  Nettlestede.  Her  family  reared 
a  sumptuous  mausoleum  over  her  remains ;  but  a  less  costly 
memorial  of  her  was  long  contemplated  with  far  deeper  inter- 
est. Her  name,  carved  by  the  hand  of  him  whom  she  loved 
too  well,  was,  a  few  years  ago,  still  discernible  on  a  tree  in  the 
adjoining  park. 

It  was  not  by  Lady  Wentworth  alone  that  the  memory  01* 
Monmouth  was  cherished*  with  idolatrous  fondness.  His  hold 
on  the  hearts  of  the  people  lasted  till  the  generation  which  had 
seen  him  had  passed  away.  Ribbons,  buckles,  and  other 
trifling  articles  of  apparel  which  he  had  worn,  were  treasured 
up  as  precious  relics  by  those  who  had  fought  under  him  at 
Sedgemoor-.  Old  men  who  long  survived  him  desired,  when 
they  were  dying,  that  these  trinkets  might  be  buried  with  them. 
One  button  of  gold  thread  which  narrowly  escaped  this  fate 
may  still  be  seen  at  a  house  which  overlooks  the  field  of  battle. 
Nay,  such  was  the  devotion  of  the  people  to  their  unhappy 
favorite  that,  in  the  face  of  the  strongest  evidence  by  which 

*  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  my  disgust  at  the  barbarous 
stupidity  which  has  transformed  this  most  interesting  little  church 
into  the  likeness  of  a  meeting-house  in  a  manufacturing  town. 


490  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  fact  of  a  death  was  ever  verified,  many  continued  to  cher- 
ish a  hope  that  he  was  still  living,  and  that  he  would  again 
appear  in  arms.  A  person,  it  was  said,  who  was  remarkably 
like  Monmouth,  had  sacrificed  himself  to  save  the  Protestant 
hero.  The  vulgar  long  continued,  at  every  important  crisis,  to 
whisper  that  the  time  was  at  hand,  and  that  King  Monmouth 
would  soon  show  himself.  In  1686,  a  knave  who  had  pretended 
to  be  the  duke,  and  had  levied  contributions  in  several  villages 
of  Wiltshire,  was  apprehended  and  whipped  from  Newgate  to 
Tyburn.  In  1698,  when  England  had  long  enjoyed  constitu- 
tional freedom  under  a  new  dynasty,  the  son  of  an  innkeeper 
passed  himself  on  the  yeomanry  of  Sussex  as  their  beloved 
Monmouth,  and  defrauded  many  who  were  by  no  means  of  the 
lowest  class.  Five  hundred  pounds  were  collected  for  him. 
The  farmers  provided  him  with  a  horse.  Their  wives  sent 
him  baskets  of  chickens  and  ducks,  and  were  lavish,  it  was 
said,  of  favors  of  a  more  tender  kind  ;  for,  in  gallantry  at  least, 
the  counterfeit  was  a  not  unworthy  representative  of  the  origi- 
nal. When  this  impostor  was  thrown  into  prison  for  his  fraud, 
his  followers  maintained  him  in  luxury.  Several  of  them  ap- 
peared at  the  bar  to  countenance  him  when  lie  was  tried  at  the 
Horsham  assizes.  So  long  did  this  delusion  last,  that,  when 
George  the  Third  had  been  some  years  on  the  English  throne, 
Voltaire  thought  it  necessary  gravely  to  confute  the  hypothesis 
that  the  man  in  the  iron  mask  was  the  Duke  of  Monmouth.* 

*  Observator,  August  1,  1685 ;  Gazette  de  France,  Nov.  2,  1686 ; 
Letter  from  Humphrey  Wanley,  dated  August  25,  1698,  in  the  Aubrey 
Collection ;  Voltaire,  Diet.  PhiL  There  are,  in  the  Pepysian  Collec-  • 
tion,  several  ballads  written  after  Monmoutli's  death,  which  represent 
him  as  living,  and  predict  his  speedy  return.  I  will  give  two  speci- 
mens:— 

"  Though  this  is  a  dismal  story 

Of  the  fall  of  my  design, 

Yet  I'll  come  again  in  glory, 

If  I  live  till  eighty-nine ; 

For  I'll  have  a  stronger  army, 

And  of  ammunition  store.     ' 
Again:  - 

11  Then  shall  Monmouth  in  his  gloriea 

Unto  his  English  friends  appear, 
And  will  stifle  all  such  stories 
As  are  vended  every  where. 
"  They'll  see  I  was  not  so  degraded, 

To  be  taken  gathering  pease, 
Or  in  a  cock  of  hay  up  braided. 

What  strange  stories  now  are  these  !  " 


HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND.  49** 

It  is,  perhaps,  a  fact  scarcely  less  remarkable  that,  to  this 
day,  the  inhabitants  of  some  parts  of  the  west  of  England, 
when  any  bill  affecting  the"ir  interests  is  before  the  House  of 
Lords,  think  themselves  entitled  to  claim  the  help  of  the  dukes 
of  Buccleuch,  the  descendants  of  the  unfortunate  leader  for 
whom  their  ancestors  bled. 

The  history  of  Monmouth  would  alone  suffice  to  refute 
the  imputation  of  inconstancy  which  is  so  frequently  thrown 
on  the  common  people.  The  common  people  are  sometimes 
inconstant;  for  they  are  human  beings.  But  that  they  are 
inconstant  as  compared  with  the  educated  classes,  with  aris- 
tocracies, or  with  princes,  may  be  confidently  denied.  It 
would  be  easy  .to  name  demagogues  whose  popularity  has 
remained  undiminished  while  sovereigns  and  parliaments  have 
withdrawn  their  confidence  from  a  long  succession  of  states* 
men.  When  Swift  had  survived  his  faculties  many  years,  the 
Irish  populace  still  continued  to  light  bonfires  on  his  birthday, 
in  commemoration  of  the  services  which  they  fancied  that  he 
had  rendered  to  his  country  when  his  mind  was  in  full  vigor. 
While  seven  administrations  were  raised  to  power  and  hurled 
from  it  in  consequence  of  court  intrigues  or  of  changes  in  the 
sentiments  of  the  higher  classes  of  society,  the  profligate  Wilkes 
retained  his  hold  on  the  affections  of  a  rabble  whom  he  pillaged 
and  ridiculed.  Politicians,  who,  in  1807,  sought  to  curry  favor 
with  George  the  Third  by  defending  Caroline  of  Brunswick, 
were  not  ashamed,  in  1820,  to  curry  favor  with  George  the 
Fourth  by  persecuting  her.  But  in  1820,  as  in  1807,  the  whole 
body  of  working  men  was  fanatically  devoted  to  her  cause. 
So  it  was  with  iVIonmouth.  In  1680  he  had  been  adored  alike 
by  the  gentry  and  by  the  peasantry  of  the  west.  In  1685  he 
came  again.  To  the  gentry  he  had  become  an  object  of 
aversion ;  but  by  the  peasantry  he  was  still  loved  with  a  love 
strong  as  death,  with  a  love  not  to  be  extinguished  by  mis- 
fortunes or  faults,  by  the  flight  from  Sedgemoor,  by  the  letter 
from  Ringwood,  or  by  the  tears  and  abject  supplications  at 
Whitehall.  The  charge  which  may  with  justice  be  brought 
against  the  common  people  is,  not  that  they  are  inconstant, 
but  that  they  almost  invariably  choose  their  favorite  so  ill  that 
their  constancy  is  a  vice  and  not  a  virtue. 

While  the  execution  of  Monmouth  occupied  the  thoughts  of 
the  Londoners,  the  counties  which  had  risen  against  the  gov- 
ernment Were  enduring  all  that  a  ferocious  soldiery  could  inflict. 
Feversham  had  been  summoned  to  the  court,  where  honors  and 
42* 


498  HISTORY    OF     ENGL.A.ND. 

rewards  which  he  little  deserved  awaited  him.  He  was  made 
a  knight  of  the  garter  and  captain  of  the  first  and  most  lucrative 
troop  of  Life  Guards :  but  court  and  city  laughed  at  his  military 
exploits ;  and  the  wit  of  Buckingham  gave  forth  its  last  feeble 
flash  at  the  expense  of  the  general  who  had  won  a  battle  in 
bed.*  Feversham  left  in  command  at  Bridgewater  Colonel 
Percy  Kirke,  a  military  adventurer  whose  vices  had  been 
developed  by  the  worst  of  all  schools,  Tangier.  Kirke  had 
during  some  years  commanded  the  garrison  of  that  town, -and 
had  been  constantly  employed  in  hostilities  against  tribes  of 
foreign  barbarians,  ignorant  of  the  laws  which  regulate  tbe 
warfare  of  civilized  and  Christian  nations.  Within  the  ram- 
parts of  his  fortress  he  was  a  despotic  prince.  The  only  check 
on  his  tyranny  was  the  fear  of  being  called  to  account  by  a 
distant  and  a  careless  government.  He  might  therefore  safely 
proceed  to  the  most  audacious  excesses  of  rapacity,  licentious- 
ness, and  cruelty.  He  lived  with  boundless  dissoluteness,  and 
procured  by  extortion  the  means  of  indulgence.  No  goods 
could  be  sold  till  Kirke  had  had  the  refusal  of  them.  No 
question  of  right  could  be  decided  till  Kirke  had  been  bribed. 
Once,  merely  from  a  malignant  whim,  he  staved  all  the  wine 
in  a  vintner's  cellar.  On  another  occasion  he  drove  all  the 
Jews  from  Tangier.  Two  of  them  he  sent  to  the  Spanish 
inquisition,  which  forthwith  burned  them.  Under  this  iron 
domination  scarce  a  complaint  was  heard ;  for  hatred  was 
effectually  kept  down  by  terror.  Two  persons  who  had  been 
refractory  were  found  murdered ;  and  it  was  universally  believed 
that  they  had  been  slain  by  Kirke's  order.  When  his  spldiers 
displeased  him,  he  flogged  them  with  merciless  severity.  But 
he  indemnified  them  by  permitting  them  to  sleep  on  watch,  to 
reel  drunk  about  the  streets,  to  rob,  beat,  and  insult  the  mer 
chants  and  the  laborers. 

When  Tangier  was  abandoned,  Kirke  returned  to  England. 
He  still  continued  to  command  his  old  soldiers,  who  were 
designated  sometimes  as  the  First  Tangier  Regiment,  and 
sometimes  as  Queen  Catherine's  Regiment.  As  they  had  been 
levied  for  the  purpose  of  waging  war  on  an  infidel  nation,  they 
bore  on  their  flag  a  Christian  emblem,  the  Paschal  lamb.  In 
allusion  to  this  device,  and  with  a  bitterly  ironical  meaning, 
these  men,  the  rudest  and  most  ferocious  in  the  English  army 

*  London  Gazette,  August  3,  1685 ;  the  Battle  of  Bedgemoor.  • 
Farce. 


HISTCRY    OF    ENGLAND.  499 

were  called  Kirke's  lambs.  The  regiment,  now  the  second  of 
the  line,  still  retains  this  ancient  badge,  which  is,  however, 
thrown  into  the  shade  by  decorations  honorably  earned  in 
Egypt,  in  Spain,  and  in  the  heart  of  Asia.* 

Such  was  the  captain  and  such  the  soldiers  who' were  now 
let  loose  on  the  people  of  Somersetshire.  From  Bridgewatei 
Kirke  marched  to  Taunton.  He  was  accompanied  by  two 
carts  filled  with  wounded  rebels  whose  gashes  had  not  been 
dressed,  and  by  a  long  drove  of  prisoners  on  foot,  who  were 
chained  two  and  two.  Several  of  these  he  hanged  as  soon  as 
he  reached  Taunton,  without  the  form  of  a  trial.  They  were 
not  suffered  even  to  take  leave  of  their  nearest  relations.  The 
sign-post  of  the  White  Hart  Inn  served  for  a  gallows.  It  is 
said  that  the  work  of  death  went  on  in  sight  of  the  windows 
where  the  officers  of  the  Tangier  regiment  were  carousing,  and 
that  at  every  health  a  wretch  was  turned  off.  When  the  legs 
of  the  dying  men  quivered  in  the  last  agony,  the  colonel 
ordered  the  drums  to  strike  up.  He  would  give  the  rebels,  he 
said,  music  to  their  dancing.  The  tradition  runs  that  one  of 
the  captives  was  not  even  allowed  the  indulgence  of  a  speedy 
death.  Twice  he  was  suspended  from  the  sign-post,  and  twice 
cut  down.  Twice  he  was  asked  if  he  repented  of  his  treason ; 
and  twice  he  replied  that,  if  the  thing  were  to  do  again,  he 
would  do  it.  Then  he  was  tied  up  for  the  last  time.  So  many 
dead  bodies  were  quartered,  that  the  executioner  stood  ankle 
deep  in  blood.  He  was  assisted  by  a  poor  man  whose  loyalty 
was  suspected,  and  who  was  compelled  to  ransom  his  own  life 
by  seething  the  remains  of  his  friends  in  pitch.  The  peasant 
who  had  consented  to  perform  this  hideous  office  afterwards 
returned  to  his  plough.  But  a  mark  like  that  of  Cain  was 
upon  him.  He  was  known  through  his  village  by  the  horrible 
name  of  Tom  Boilman.  The  rustics  long  continued  to  relate 
that,  though  he  had,  by  his  sinful  and  shameful  deed,  saved 
himself  from  the  vengeance  of  the  Lambs,  he  had  not  es- 
caped the  vengeance  of  a  higher  power.  In  a  great  storm 
he  fled  for  shelter  under  an  oak,  and  was  there  struck  dead 
by  lightning.t 

*  Pepys's  Diary,  kept  at  Tangier  ;  Historical  Records  of  the 
Second  or  Queen's  Royal  Regiment  of  Foot. 

t  Bloody  Assizes;  Burnet,  i.  647;  Luttrell's  Diary,  July  15,  1685  ; 
Locke's  Western  Rebellion ;  Toulmin's  History  of  Taunton,  edited 
oy  Savage. 


500  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

The  number  of  those  who  were  thus  butchered  cannot  now 
be  ascertained.  Nine  were  entered  in  the  parish  registers  of 
Taunton  ;  but  those  registers  contain  the  names  only  of  such  as 
had  Christian  burial.  Those  who  were  hanged  in  chains,  and 
those  whose  heads  and  limbs  were  sent  to  the  neighboring  vil- 
lages, must  have  been  much  more  numerous.  It  was  believed 
in  London,  at  the  time,  that  Kirke  put  a  hundred  captives  to 
death  during  the  week  which  followed  the  battle.* 

Cruelty,  however,  was  not  this  man's  only  passion.  He 
loved  money  ;  and  was  no  novice  in  the  arts  of  extortion.  A 
safe  conduct  might  be  bought  of  him  for  thirty  or  forty  pounds  , 
and  such  a  safe  conduct,  though  of  no  value  in  law,  enabled 
the  purchaser  to  pass  the  posts  of  the  Lambs  without  moles- 
tation, to  reach  a  seaport,  and  to  fly  to  a  foreign  country.  The 
ships  which  were  bound  for  New  England  we^re  crowded  at 
this  juncture  with  so  many  fugitives  from  Sedgemoor  that  there 
was  great  danger  lest  the  water  and  provisions  should  fail.t 

Kirke  was  also,  in  his  own  coarse  and  ferocious  way,  a  man 
of  pleasure  ;  and  nothing  is  more  probable  than  that  he  em- 
ployed his  power  for  the  purpose  of  gratifying  his  licentious 
appetites.  It  was  reported  that  he  conquered  the  virtue  of  a 
beautiful  woman  by  promising  to  spare  the  life  of  one  to  whom 
shp  was  strongly  attached,  and  that,  after  she  had  yielded,  he 
showed  her,  suspended  on  the  gallows,  the  lifeless  remains  of 
him  for  whose  sake  she  had  sacrificed  her  honor.  This  tale 
an  impartial  judge  must  reject.  It  is  unsupported  by  proof. 
The  earliest  authority  for  it  is  a  poem  written  by  Pomfret.  The 
respectable  historians  of  that  age,  while  they  expatiate  on  the 
crimes  of  Kirke,  either  omit  all  mention  of  this  most  atrocious 
crime,  or  mention  it  as  a  thing  rumored  but  not  proved.  Those 
who  tell  the  story  tell  it  with  such  variations  as  deprive  it  of  all 
title  to  credit.  Some  lay  the  scene  at  Taunton,  some  at  Exe- 
ter. Some  make  the  heroine  of  the  tale  a  maiden,  some  a 
married  woman.  The  relation  for  whom  the  shameful  ransom 
was  paid  is  described  by  some  as  her  father,  by  some  as  her 
brother,  and  by  some  as  her  husband.  Lastly,  the  story  is  one 
which,  long  before  Kirke  was  born,  had  been  told  of  many 
other  oppressors,  and  had  become  a  favorite  theme  of  novelists 
and  dramatists.  Two  politicians  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
Rhynsault,  the  favorite  of  Charles  the  BoW,  and  Oliver  le  Dain, 

*  Luttrell's  Diary,  July  15,  1685  ;  Toulmin's  History  of  Taunton. 
1   Oldmixon,  70-0  ;  Life  and  Errors  of  John  Dunton,  chap,  vii 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  501 

the  favorite  of  Lewis  the  Eleventh,  had  been  accused  of  the 
same  crime.  Cintio  had  taken  it  for  the  subject  of  a  romance  ; 
Whetstone  had  made  out  of  Cintio's  narrative  the  rude  play  of 
Promos  and  Cassandra ;  and  Shakspeare  had  borrowed  from 
Whetstone  the  plot  of  the  noble  tragicomedy  of  Measure  for 
Measure.  A$  Kirke  was  not  the  first,  so  he  was  not  the  last, 
to  whom  this  excess  of  wickedness  was  popularly  imputed. 
During  the  reaction  which  followed  the  Jacobin  tyranny  in 
France,  a  very  similar  charge  was  brought  against  Joseph  Le- 
bon,  one  of  the  most  odious  agents  of  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety,  and,  after  inquiry,  was  admitted  even  by  his  prosecu- 
tors to  be  unfounded.* 

The  government  was  dissatisfied  with  Kirke,  not  on  account 
of  the  barbarity  with  which  he  had  treated  his  needy  prisoners, 
hut  on  account  of  the  interested  lenity  which  he  had  shown  to 
rich  delinquents.t  He  was  soon  recalled  from  the  west.  A 
less  irregular,  and  at  the  same  time,  a  more  cruel  massacre, 
was  about  to  be  perpetrated.  The  vengeance  was  deferred 
during  some  weeks.  It  was  thought  desirable  that  the  Western 
Circuit  should  not  begin  till  the  other  circuits  had  terminated. 
In  the  mean  time  the  jails  of  Somersetshire  and  Dorsetshire 
were  filled  with  thousands  of  captives.  The  chief  friend  and 
protector  of  these  unhappy  men  in  their  extremity  was  one  who 
abhorred  their  religious  and  political  opinions,  one  whose  order 
they  hated,  and  to  whom  they  had  done  unprovoked  wrong — 
Bishop  Ken.  That  good  prelate  used  all  his  influence  to  soften 
the  jailers,  and  retrenched  from  his  own  episcopal  state  that  he 
might  be  able  to  make  some  addition  to  the  coarse  and  scanty 
fare  of  those  who  had  defaced  his  beloved  cathedral.  His  con- 
duct on  this  occasion  was  of  a  piece  with  his  whole  life.  His 
intellect  was  indeed  darkened  by  many  superstitions  and  preju- 

*  The  silence  of  Oldmixon  and  of  the  compilers  of  the  Western 
Martyrology  would  alone  seem  to  me  to  settle  the  question.  It  also 
deserves  to  be  remarked  that  the  story  of  llhynsault  is  told  by  Sieele 
in  the  Spectator,  No.  491.  Surely  it  is  hardly  possible  to  believe 
that,  if  a  crime  exactly  resembling  that  of  llhynsault  had  been  com- 
mitted within  living  memory  in  England  by  an  officer  of  James  the 
Second,  Steele,  who  was  indiscreetly  and  unseasonably  forward  to 
display  his  Whiggism,  would  have  made  no  allusion  to  that  fact.  For 
the  case  of  Lebon,  see  the  Moniteur,  4  Messidor,  1'an  3. 

t  Sunderland  to  Kirke,  July  14  and  28,  1685.  "His  majesty," 
says  Sunderland,  "  commands  me  to  signify  to  you  his  dislike  of  these 
proceedings,  and  desires  you  to  take  care  that  no  person  concerned  in 
tho  rebellion  b«  at  large." 


502  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

dices  ;  but  his  moral  character,  when  impartially  reviewed, 
sustains  a  comparison  with  any  in  ecclesiastical  history,  and 
seems  to  approach  as  near  as  human  infirmity  permits,  to  the 
ideal  perfection  of  Christian  virtue.* 

His  labor  of  love  was  of  no  long  duration.  A  rapid  aud 
effectual  jail  delivery  was  at  hand.  Early  in  September,  Jef- 
freys, accompanied  by  four  other  judges,  set  out  on  that  circuit 
of  which  the  memory  will  last  as  long  as  our  race  and  language. 
The  officers  who  commanded  the  troops  in  the  districts  through 
which  his  course  lay  had  orders  to  furnish  him  with  whatever 
military  aid  he  might  require.  His  ferocious  temper  needed  no 
spur ;  yet  a  spur  was  applied.  The  health  and  spirits  of  the 
lord  keeper  had  given  way.  He  had  been  deeply  mortified  by 
the  coldness  of  the  king  and  by  the  insolence  of  the  chief  jus- 
tice, and  could  find  little  consolation  in  looking  back  on  a  life, 
not  indeed  blackened  by  any  atrocious"  crime,  but  sullied  by 
cowardice,  selfishness,  and  servility.  So  deeply  was  the  un- 
happy man  humbled  that,  when  he  appeared  for  the  last  time 
in  Westminster  Hall,  he  took  with  him  a  nosegay  to  hide  his 
face,  because,  as  he  afterwards  owned,  he  could  not  bear  the 
eyes  of  the  bar  and  of  the  audience.  The  prospect  of  his 
approaching  end  seems  to  have  inspired  him  with  unwonted 
courage.  He  determined  to  discharge  his  conscience,  requested 
an  audience  of  the  king,  spoke  earnestly  of  the  dangers  in- 
separable from  violent  and  arbitrary  covmsels,  and  condemned 
the  lawless  cruelties  which  the  soldiers  had  committed  in  Som- 
ersetshire. He  soon  after  retired  from  London  to  die.  He 
breathed  his  last  a  few  days  after  the  judges  set  out  for  the 
west.  It  was  immediately  notified  to  Jeffreys  that  he  might 
expect  the  great  seal  as  the  reward  of  faithful  and  vigorous 
service.! 

At  Winchester  the  chief  justice  first  opened  his  commission. 

*  I  should  be  very  glad  if  I  could  give  credit  to  the  popular  story 
that  Ken,  immediately  after  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor,  represented  to 
the  chiefs  of  the  royal  army  the  illegality  of  military  executions.  He 
would,  I  doubt  not,  have  exerted  all  his  influence  on  the  side  of  law 
and  of  mercy,  if  he  had  been  present.  But  there  is  no  trustworthy 
evidence  that  he  was  then  in  the  west  at  all.  It  is  certain  from  the 
journals  of  the  House  of  Lords  that,  on  the  Thursday  before  the 
battle,  he  was  at  Westminster.  It  is  equally  certain  that,  on  the 
Monday  after  the  battle,  he  was  with  Monmouth  in  the  Tower. 

t  North's  Life  of  Ouildford,  260,  263,  273 ;  Mackintosh's  View  of 
the  Reign  of  James  the  Second,  page  16,  note;  Letter  of  Jeffrey* 
to  Sundcrland,  Sept.  6,  168-5. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  60S 

Hampshire  had  not  been  the  theatre  of  war ;  but  many  of  the 
vanquished  rebels  had,  like  their  leader,  fled  thither.  Two  of 
them,  John  Hickes,  a  Nonconformist  divine,  and  Richard 
Nelthorpe,  a  lawyer  who  had  been  outlawed  for  his  share  in  the 
Rye  House  Plot,  had  sought  refuge  at  the  house  of  Alice,  widow 
of  John  Lisle.  John  Lisle  had  sate  in  the  Long  Parliament 
and  in  the  High  Court  of  Justice,  had  been  a  commissioner  of , 
the  great  seal  in  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  had  been 
created  a  lord  by  Cromwell.  The  titles  given  by  the  Protector 
had  not  been  recognized  by  any  government  which  had  ruled 
England  since  the  downfall  of  his  house ;  but  they  appear  to 
have  been  often  used  in  conversation  even  by  royalists.  John 
Lisle's  widow  was  therefore  commonly  known  as  the  Lady 
Alice.  She  was  related  to  many  respectable,  and  to  some 
noble,  families;  and  she  was  generally  esteemed  even  by  the 
Tory  gentlemen  of  her  county.  For  it  was  well  known  to 
them  that  she  had  deeply  regretted  some  violent  acts  in  which 
her  husband  had  borne  a  part,  that  she  had  shed  bitter  tears  for 
Charles  the  First,  and  that  she  had  protected  and  relieved  many 
Cavaliers  in  their  distress.  The  same  womanly  kindness  which 
had  led  her  to  befriend  the  royalists  in  their  time  of  trouble 
would  not  suffer  her  to  refuse  a  meal  and  a  hiding-place  to  the 
wretched  men  who  now  entreated  her  to  protect  them.  She 
took  them  into  her  house,  set  meat  and  drink  before  them,  and 
showed  them  where  they  might  take  rest.  The  next  morning 
her  dwelling  was  surrounded  by  soldiers.  Strict  search  was 
made.  Hickes  was  found  concealed  in  the  malthouse,  and 
Nelthorpe  in  the  chimney.  If  Lady  Alice  knew  her  guests  to 
have  been  concerned  in  the  insurrection,  she  was  undoubtedly 
guilty  of  what  in  strictness  is  a  capital  crime.  For  the  law 
of  principal  and  accessory,  as  respects  high  treason,  then  was, 
and  is  to  this  day,  in  a  state  disgraceful  to  English  jurispru- 
dence. In  cases  of  felony,  a  distinction,  founded  on  justice  and 
reason,  is  made  between  the  principal  and  the  accessory  after 
the  fact.  He  who  conceals  from  justice  one  whom  he  knows 
to  be  a  murderer,  though  liable  to  punishment,  is  not  liable  to 
the  punishment  of  murder ;  but  he  who  shelters  one  whom  he 
Knows  to  be  a  traitor  is,  according  to  all  our  jurists,  guilty  of 
ligh  treason.  It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  absurdity  and 
cruelty  of  a  law  which  includes  under  the  same  definition,  and 
visits  with  the  same  penalty,  offences  lying  at  the  opposite 
extremes  of  the  scale  of  guilt.  The  feeling  which  makes  the 
most  loyal  subject  shrink  from  the  thought  of  giving  up  to  a 


504  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

shameful  death  the  rebel  who,  vanquished,  hunted  down,  and  m 
mortal  agony,  begs  for  a  morsel  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  water, 
may  be  a  weakness  ;  but  it  is  surely  a  weakness  very  nearly 
allied  to  virtue,  a  weakness  which,  constituted  as  human  beings 
are,  we  can  hardly  eradicate  from  the  mind  without  eradicating 
many  noble  and  benevolent  sentiments.  A  wise  and  good 
ruler  may  not  think  it  right  to  sanction  this  weakness  ;  but  he 
will  generally  connive  at  it,  or  punish  it  very  tenderly.  In  no 
case  will  he  treat  it  as  a  crime  of  the  blackest  dye.  Whether 
Flora  Macdonald  was  justified  in  concealing  the  attainted  heir 
of  the  Stuarts  wl  ether  a  brave  soldier  of  our  own  time  was 
justified  in  assisting  the  escape  of  Lavalette,  are  questions  on 
which  casuists  may  differ ;  but  to  class  such  actions  with  the 
crimes  of  Guy  Faux  and  Fieschi  is  an  outrage  to  humanity  and 
common  sense.  Such,  however,  is  the  classification  of  our 
law.  It  is  evident  that  nothing  but  a  lenient  administration 
could  make  such  a  state  of  the  law  endurable.  And  it  is  just 
to  say  that,  during  many  generations,  no  English  government, 
save  one,  has  treated  with  rigor  persons  guilty  merely  of  har- 
boring defeated  and  flying  insurgents.  To  women  especially 
has  been  granted,  by  a  kind  of  tacit  prescription,  the  right  of 
indulging,  1n  the  midst  of  havoc  and  vengeance,  that  compas- 
sion which  is  the  most  endearing  of  all  their  charms.  Since 
the  beginning  of  the  great  civil  war,  numerous  rebels,  some  01 
them  far  more  important  than  Hickes  or  Nelthorpe,  have  been 
protected  against  the  severity  of  victorious  governments  by 
female  adroitness  and  generosity.  But  no  English  ruler  who 
has  been  thus  baffled,  the  savage  and  implacable  James  alone 
excepted,  has  had  the  barbarity  even  to  think  of  putting  a  lady 
to  a  cruel  and  shameful  death  for  so  venial  and  amiable  a 
transgression. 

Odious  as  the  law  was,  it  was  strained  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  Alice  Lisle.  She  could  not,  according  to  the  doc- 
trine laid  down  by  the  highest  authority,  be  convicted,  till  after 
the  conviction  of  the  rebels  whom  she  had  harbored.*  She 
was,  however,  set  to  the  bar  before  either  Hickes  or  Nelthorpe 
had  been  tried.  It  was  no  easy  matter  in  such  a  case  to  obtain 
a  verdict  for  the  crown.  The  witnesses  prevaricated.  The 
lury,  consisting  of  the  principal  gentlemen  of  Hampshire, 
shrank  from  the  thought  of  sending  a  fellow-creature  to  the 
stake  for  conduct  which  seemed  deserving  rather  of  praise  than 
of  blame.  Jeffreys  was  beside  himself  with  fury.  This  was 

*  See  the  preamble  to  the  act  reserving  her  attainder. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  „  600 

the  first  case  of  treason  on  the  circuit ;  and  there  seemed  to 
be  a  strong  probability  that  his  prey  would  escape  him.  He 
stormed,  cursed,  and  swore  in  language  which  no  well-bred 
man  would  have  used  at  a  race  or  a  cockfight.  One  witness 
name'd  Dunne,  partly  from  concern  for  Lady  Alice,  and  partly 
from  fright  at  the  threats  and  maledictions  of  the  chief  justice, 
entirely  lost  his  head,  and  at  last  stood  silent.  "  O  how  hard 
the  truth  is,"  said  Jeffreys,  "  to  come  out  of  a  lying  Presbyte- 
rian knave  ! "  The  witness,  after  a  pause  of  some  minutes 
stammered  a  few  unmeaning  words.  "  Was  there  ever,"  ex- 
claimed the  judge,  with  an  oath, "  was  there  ever  such  a  villain 
on  the  face%  of  the  earth  ?  Dost  thou  believe  that  there  is  a 
God  ?  Dost  thou  believe  in  hell  fire  ?  Of  all  the  witnesses 
that  I  ever  met  with  I  never  saw  thy  fellow."  Still  the  poor 
man,  scared  out  of  his  senses,  remained  mute ;  and  again 
Jeffreys  burst  forth.  "  I  hope,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  that  you 
take  notice  of  the  horrible  carriage  of  this  fellow.  How  can 
one  help  abhorring  both  these  men  and  their  religion  ?  A 
Turk  is  a  saint  to  such  a  fellow  as  this.  A  pagan  would  be 
ashamed  of  such  villany.  O  blessed  Jesus !  What  a  gener- 
ation of  vipers  do  we  l:ve  among ! "  "I  cannot  tell  what  to 
Bay,  my  lord,"  faltered  Dunne.  The  judge  again  broke  forth 
into  a  volley  of  oaths.  ;'  Was  there  ever,"  he  cried,  "such  an 
impudent  rascal  ?  Hold  the  candle  to  him  that  we  may  see 
his  brazen  face.  You,  gentlemen,  that  are  of  counsel  for  the 
crown,  see  that  an  information  for  perjury  be  preferred  against 
this  fellow."  After  the  witnesses  had  been 'thus  handled,  the 
Lady  Alice  was  called  on  for  her  defence.  She  began  by 
saying,  what  may  possibly  have  l>een  true,  that  though  she 
knew  Hickes  to  be  in  trouble  when  she  took  him  in,  she  did 
not  know  or  suspect  that  he  had  been  concerned"  in  the  rebel 
lion.  He  was  a  divine,  a  man  of  peace.  It  had,  therefore, 
never  occurred  to  her  that  he  could  have  borne  arms  against 
the  government ;  and  she  had  supposed  that  he  wished  to  con- 
ceol  himself  because  warrants  were  out  against  him  for  field 
preaching.  The  chief  justice  began  to  storm.  "  But  I  will 
tell  you.  There  is  not  one  of  those  lying,  snivelling,  canting 
Presbyterians  but,  one  way  or  another,  had  a  hand  in  the  re- 
bellion. Presbytery  has  all  manner  of  villany  in  it.  Nothing 
but  Presbytery  could  have  made  Dunne  such  a  rogue.  Show 
me  a  Presbyterian  ;  and  I'll  show  thee  a  lying  knave."  He 
summed  up  in  the  same  style,  declaimed  during  an  hour  agams* 
VOL.  i.  43 


606  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

Whigs  and  dissenters,  and  reminded  the  jury  that  the  prisoner's 
husband  had  borne  a  part  in  the  death  of  Charles  the  First,  a 
fact  which  was,  not  proved  by  any  testimony,  and  which,  if  it 
had  been  proved,  would  have  been  utterly  irrelevant  to  the 
issue.  The  jury  retired  and  remained  long  in  consultation. 
The  judge  grew  impatient.  He  could  not  conceive,  he  said, 
how,  in  so  plain  a  case,  they  should  ever  have  left  the  box. 
He  sent  a.messenger  to  tell  them  that,  if  they  did  not  instantly 
return,  he  would  adjourn  the  court  and  lock  them  up  all  night 
Thus  put  to  the  torture,  they  came,  but  came  to  say  that  they 
doubted  whether  the  charge  had  been  made  out.  •  Jeffreys  ex- 
postulated with  them  vehemently,  and,  after  another  consulta- 
tion, they  gave  a  reluctant  verdict  of  Guilty. 

On  the  following  morning  sentence  was  pronounced.  Jef- 
freys gave  directions  that  Alice  Lisle  should  be  burned  alive 
that  very  afternoon.  This  excess  of  barbarity  moved  the  pity 
and  indignation  even  of  that  class  which  was  most  devoted  to 
the  crown.  The  clergy  of  Winchester  Cathedral  remonstrated 
with  the  chief  justice,  who,  brutal  as  he  was,  was  not  mad 
enough  to  risk  a  quarrel  on  such  a  subject  with  a  body  so  much 
respected  by  the  Tory  party.  He  consented  to  put  off  the 
execution  five  days.  During  that  time  the  friends  of  the  pris- 
oner besought  James  to  show  her  mercy.  Ladies  of  high  rank 
interceded  for  her.  Feversham,  whose  recent  victory  had  in- 
creased his  influence  at  court,  and  who,  it  is  said,  had  been 
bribed  to  take  the  compassionate  side,  spoke  in  her  favor. 
Clarendon,  the  king's  brother-in-law,  pleaded  her  cause.  But 
all  was  vain.  ^  The  utmost  that  could  be  obtained  was,  that  her 
sentence  should  be  commuted  from  burning  to  beheading.  She 
was  put  to  death  on  a  scaffold  in  the  market  place  of  Win- 
chester, and  underwent  her  fate  with  serene  courage.* 

In  Hampshire,  Alice  Lisle  was  the  only  victim ;  but,  on 
the  day  following  her  execution,  Jeffreys  reached  Dorchester, 
the  principal  town  of  the  county  in  which  Monmouth  had 
landed,  and  the  judicial  massacre  began. 

The  court  was  hung,  by  order  of  the  chief  justice,  with 
scarlet;  and  this  innovation  seemed  to  the  multitude  to  indi- 
cate a  bloody  purpose.  It  was  also  rumored  that,  when  the 
clergyman  who  preached  the  assize  sermon  enforced  the  duty 

*  Trial  of  Alice  Liale  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials  ;  Stat.  1  Gul 
fc  Mar. ;  Burnet,  i.  649  ;  Caveat  against  the  Whigs. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  507 

of  mercy,  the  ferocious  mouth  of  the  judge  was  distorted  by 
an  ominous  grin.  These  things  made  men  augur  ill  of  what 
was  to  follow.* 

More  than  three  hundred  prisoners  were  to  be  tried.  The 
work  seemed  heavy  ;  but  Jeffreys  had  a  contrivance  for  making 
it  light.  He  let  it  be  understood  that  the  only  chance  of  ob 
taining  pardon  or  respite  was  to  plead  guilty.  Twenty-nino 
persons,  who  put  themselves  on  their  country  and  were  con- 
victed, were  ordered  to  be  tied  up  without  delay.  The  remain- 
ing prisoners  pleaded  guilty  by  scores.  Two  hundred  and 
nine,ty-two  received  sentence  of  death.  The  whole  number 
hanged  in  Dorsetshire  amounted  to  seventy-four. 

From  Dorchester,  Jeffreys  proceeded  to  Exeter.  The  civil 
war  had  barely  grazed  the  frontier  of  Devonshire.  Here, 
therefore,  comparatively  few  persons  were  capitally  punished. 
Somersetshire,  the  chief  seat  of  the  rebellion,  had  been  re- 
served for  the  last  and  most  fearful  vengeance.  In  this  county 
two  hundred  and  thirty-three  prisoners  were  in  a  few  days 
hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered.  At  every  spot  where  two 
roads  met,  on  every  market  place,  on  the  green  of  every  large 
village  which  had  furnished  Monmouth  with  soldiers,  ironed 
corpses  clattering  in  the  wind,  or  heads  and  quarters,  stuck  on 
poles,  poisoned  the  air,  and  made  the  traveller  sick  with  horror. 
In  many  parishes  the  peasantry  could  not  assemble  in  the 
house  of  God  without  seeing  the  ghastly  face  of  a  neighbor 
grinning  at  them  over  the  porch.  The  chief  justice  was  all 
himself.  His  spirits  rose  higher  and  higher  as  the  work  went 
on.  He  laughed,  shouted,  joked,  and  swore  in  such  a  way 
that  many  thought  him  drunk  from  morning  to  night.  But  in 
him  it  was  not  easy  to  distinguish  the  madness  produced  by  evil 
passions  from  the  madness  produced  by  brandy.  A  prisoner 
affirmed  that  the  witnesses  who  appeared  against  him  were  not 
entitled  to  oredit.  One  of  them,  he  said,  was  a  Papist,  and  the 
other  a  prostitute.  "  Thou  impudent  rebel,"  exclaimed  the 
judge,  "  to  reflect  on  the  king's  evidence  !  I  see  thee,  villain, 
I  see  thee  already  with  the  halter  round  thy  neck."  Another 
produced  testimony  that  he  was  a  good  Protestant.  "  Protes- 
tant !  "  said  Jeffreys ;  "  you  mean  Presbyterian.  I'll  hold  you 
a  wager  of  it.  I  can  smell  a  Presbyterian  forty  miles."  One 
wretched  man  moved  the  pity  even  of  bitter  Tories.  "  My 
lord,"  they  said,  "  this  poor  creature  is  on  the  parish."  "  Do 

*  Bloody  Assize*. 


608  HISTOK7    OF    ENGLAND. 

not  trouble  yourselves,"  said  the  judge ;  "  I  will  ease  the  parish 
'  :of  the  burden."  It  was  not  only  on  the  prisoners  that  his  fury 
broke  forth.  Gentlemen  and  noblemen  of  high  consideration 
and  stainless  loyalty,  who  ventured  to  bring  to  his  notice  any 
extenuating  circumstance,  were  almost  sure  to  receive  what  he 
called,  in  the  coarse  dialect  wliich  he  had  learned  in  ;he  pot- 
houses of  Whitechapel,  a  lick  with  the  rough  side  of  his 
tongue.  Lord  Stawell,  a  Tory  peer,  who  could  not  conceal  his 
horror  at  the  remorseless  manner  in  which  his  poor  neighbors 
were  butchered,  was  punished  by  having  a  corpse  suspended  in 
chains  at  his  park  gate.*  In  such  spectacles  originated  many 
tales  of  terror,  which  were  long  told  over  the  cider  by  the 
Christmas  fires  of  the  farmers  of  Somersetshire.  Within  the 
last  forty  years  peasants,  in  some  districts,  well  knew  the 
•\ccursed  spots,  and  passed  them  unwillingly  after  sunset.t 

Jeffreys  boasted  that  he  had  hanged  more  traitors  than  all  his 
predecessors  together  since  the  Conquest.  It  is  certain  that  the 
number  of  persons  whom  he  executed  in  one  month,  and  in  one 
shirt,  very  much  exceeded  the  numberof  all  the  political  offend- 
ers who  have  been  executed  in  our  island  since  the  revolution. 
The  insurrections  of  1715  and  1745  were  of  longer  duration, 
of  wider  extent,  and  of  more^formidable  aspect  than  that  which 
was  put  down  at  Sedgemoor.  It  has  not  been  generally  thought 
that,  either  after  the  rebellion  of  1715,  or  after  the  rebellion 
of  1745,  the  House  of  Hanover  erred  on  the  side  of  clemency. 
Yet  all  the  executions  of  1715  and  1745  added  together  will 
appear  to  have  been  few  indeed  when  compared  with  those 
which  disgraced  the  Bloody  Assizes.  The  number  of  the 
rebels  whom  Jeffreys  hanged  on  this  circuit  was  three  hundred 
and  twenty.^ 

Such  havoc  must  have  excited  disgust  even  if  the  sufferers 
had  been  generally  odious.  But  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
men  of  blameless  life,  and  of  high  religious  profession.  They 
were  regarded  by  themselves,  and  by  a  large  proportion  of 
their  neighbors,  not  as  wrong-doers,  but  as  martyrs  who  sealed 
with  blood  the  truth  of  the  Protestant  religion.  Very  few  of 

*  Locke's  Western  Rebellion. 

t  This  I  can  attest  from  my  own  childish  recollections. 

j  Lord  Lonsdale  says  seven  hundred ;  Burnet  six  hundred.  I 
have  followed  the  list  which  the  judges  sent  to  the  Treasury,  and 
•which  may  still  be  seen  there  in  the  letter  jjook  of  1685.  See  the 
Bloody  Assizes ;  Locke's  Western  Rebellion  ;  the  Panegyric  on  Lord 
Jeffreys;  Burnet,  i.  648;  Eachard,  iii.  775;  Oldmixon,  705. 


HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND.  509 

tne  convicts  professed  any  repentance  for  what  they  had  done. 
Many,  animated  by  the  old  Puritan  spirit,  met  death,  not  merely 
with  fortitude,  but  with  exultation.  It  was  in  vain  that  the 
ministers  of  the  Established  Church  lectured  them  on  the  guilt 
of  rebellion  and  on  the  importance  of  priestly  absolution.  The 
claim  of  the  king  to  unbounded  authority  in  things  temporal, 
and  the  claim  of  the  clergy  to  the  spiritual  power  of  binding 
and  loosing,  moved  the  bitter  scorn  of  the  intrepid  sectaries. 
Some  of  them  composed  hymns  in  the  dungeon  and  chanted 
them  on  the  fatal  sledge.  Christ,  they  sang  while  they  were 
undressing  for  the  butchery,  would  soon  come  to  rescue  Zion 
jmd  to  make  war  on  Babylon,  would  set  up  his  standard,  would 
blow  his  trumpet,  and  would  requite  his  foes  tenfold  for  all 
-  the  evil  which  had  been  inflicted  on  his  servants.  The  dying 
words  of  these  men  were  noted  down ;  their  farewell  letters 
were  kept  as  treasures ;  and  in  this  way,  with  the  help  of  some 
invention  and  exaggeration,  was  formed  a  copious  supplement 
to  the  Marian  martyrology.* 

A  few  cases  deserve  special  mention.  Abraham  Holmes,  a 
retired  officer  of  the  parliamentary  army,  and  one  of  those  zeal- 
ots who  would  own  no  king  but  King  Jesus,  had  been  taken  at 
Sedgemoor.  His  arm  had  been  frightfully  mangled  and  shat- 
tered in  the  battle  ;  and  as  no  surgeon  was  at  hand,  the  stout 
old  soldier  amputated  it  himself.  He  was  carried  up  to  Lon- 
don and  examined  by  the  king  in  council,  but  would  make  uo 
submission.  "  I  am  an  aged  man,"  he  said ;  "  and  what 
remains  to  me  of  life  is  not  worth  a  falsehood  or  a  baseness. 
1  have  always  been  a  republican  ;  and  I  am  so  slill."  He  was 
sent  back  to  the  west  and  hanged.  The  people  remarked  with 
awe  and  wonder  that  the  beasts  which  were  to  drag  him  to 
the  gallows  became  restive  and  v^nt  back.  Holmes  himself 
doubted  not  that  the  Angel  of  the  Lord,  HS  in  the  old  time,  stood 
in  the  way  sword  in  hand,  invisible  to  huu::ui  eyes,  but  visible 
to  the  inferior  animals.  "  Stop,  gentlemen,"  he  cried, "  let  me 
go  on  foot.  There  is  more  in  this  than  you  think.  Remem- 
ber how  the  ass  saw  him  whom  the  prophet  could  not  see." 
He  walked  manfully  to  the  gallows,  harangued  the  people  with 
a.  smile,  prayed  fervently  that  .God  would  hasten  the  downfall 
of  Antichrist  and  the  deliverance  of  England,  and  went  up  the 

*  Some  of  the  prayers,  exhortations,  and  hymns  of  the  sufferers 
will  be  found  in  the  Bloody  Assizes. 
43* 


510  HISTORY    OF    ENQLAND. 

ladder  with  an  apology  for  mounting  so  awkwardly.     '  You 
«ee,"  he  said,  "  I  have  but  one  arm."  * 

Not  less  courageously  died  Christopher  Battiscombe,  a  young 
Templar  of  good  family  and  fortune,  who,  at  Dorchester,  an 
agreeable  provincial  town,  proud  of  its  taste  and  refinement, 
was  regarded  by  all  as  the  model  of  a  fine  gentleman.  Great 
interest  was  made  to  save  him.  It  was  believed  through  the 
west  of  England  that  he  was  engaged  to  a  young^  lady  of  gen- 
tle blood,  the  sister  of  the  high  sheriff,  that  she  threw  herself 
at  the  feet  of  Jeffreys  to  beg  for  mercy,  and  that  Jeffreys  drove 
her  from  him  with  a  jest  so  hideous  that  to  repeat  it  would  be 
an  offence  against  decency  and  humanity.  Her  lover  suffered 
at  Lyme  piously  and  courageously.! 

A  still  deeper  interest  was  excited  by  the  fate  of  two  gallant 
brothers,  William  and  Benjamin  Hewling.  They  were  young, 
handsome,  accomplished,  and  well  connected.  Their  mater- 
nal grandfather  was  named  Kiffin.  He  was  one  of  the  first 
merchants  in  London,  and  was  generally  considered  as  the  head 
of  the  Baptists.  "  The  chief  justice  behaved  to  William  Hew- 
ling on  the  trial  with  characteristic  brutality.  "  You  have  a 
grandfather,"  he  said,  "  who  deserves  to  be  hanged  as  richly  as 
you."  The  poor  lad,  who  was  only  nineteen,  suffered  death 
with  so  much  meekness  and  fortitude  that  an  officer  of  the 
army  who  attended  the  execution,  and  who  had  made  himself 
remarkable  by  rudeness  and  severity,  was  strangely  melted, 
and  said,  "  I  do  not  believev  that  my  lord  chief  justice  himself 
could  be  proof  against  this."  Hopes  were  entertained  that 
Benjamin  would  be  pardoned.  One  victim  of  tender  years  was 
surely  enough  for  one  house  to  furnish.  Even  Jeffreys  was,  or 
,  pretended  to  be,  inclined  to  lenity.  The  truth  was,  that  one  of 
his  kinsmen,  from  whom  he  had  large  expectations,  and  whom, 
therefore,  he  could  not  treat  as  he  generally  .treated  inter- 
cessors, pleaded  strongly  for  the  afflicted  family.  Time  was 
allowed  for  a  reference  to  London.  The  sister  of  the  prisoner 
went  to  Whitehall  with  a  petition.  Many  courtiers  wished  her 

*  Bloody  Assizes;  Locke's  Western  Rebellion;  Lord  Lonsdale's 
Memoirs;  Account  of  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor  in  the  Hardwicke 
Papers. 

The  story  in  Clarke's  Life  of  James  the  Second,  ii.  43,  is  not  taken 
from  the  king's  manuscripts,  and  sufficiently  refutes  itself. 

t  Bloody  Assizes ;  Locke's  Western  Rebellion  ;  Humble  Petition 
of  Widows  and  fatherless  Children  in  the  West  of  England ;  Pane 
gyric  on  Lord  Jeffreys. 


V   ' 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  511 

success  ;  and  Churchill,  among  whose  numerous  faults  cruelty 
had  no  place,  obtained  admittance  for  her.  "  I  wish  well  to 
your  suit  with  all  my  heart,"  he  said,  as  they  stood  together 
in  the  antechamber ;  "  but  do  not  flatter  yourself  with  hopes. 
This  marble,"  and  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  chimney-piece, 
"  is  not  harder  than  the  king."  The  prediction  proved  true. 
Janies  was  inexorable.  Benjamin  Hewling  died  with  dauntless 
courage,  amidst  lamentations  in  which  the  soldiers  who  kept 
guard  round  the  gallows  could  not  refrain  from  joining.* 

Yet  those  rebels  who  were  doomed  to  death  were  less  to  be 
pitied  than  some  of  the  survivors.  Several  prisoners  to  whom 
Jeffreys  was  unable  to  bring  home  the  charge  of  high  treason 
were  convicted  of  misdemeanors,  and  were  sentenced  to 
scourging  not  less  terrible  than  that  which  Gates  had  under- 
gone. A  woman,  for  some  idle  words  such  as  had  been  uttered 
by  half  the  women  in  the  districts  where  the  war  had  raged, 
was  condemned  to  be  whipped  through  all  the  market  towns  in 
the  county  of  Dorset.  She  suffered  part  of  her  punishment 
before  Jeffreys  returned  to  London ;  but,  .vhen  he  was  no 
longer  in  the  west,  the  jailers,  with  the  hur.ane  connivance  of 
the  magistrates,  took  on  themselves  the  responsibility  of  sparing 
her  any  further  torture.  A  still  more  fnghtful  sentence  was 
passed  on  a  lad  named  Tutchin,  who  wus  tried  for  seditious 
words.  He  was,  as  usual,  interrupted  in  \\s  defence  by  ribaldry 
and  scurrility  from  the  judgment  seat.  "  You  are  a  rebel ; 
and  all  your  family  have  been  rebels  sine-,  Adam.  They  tell  me 
that  you  are  a  poet.  I'll  cap  verses  with  you."  The  sentence 
was,  that  the  boy  should  be  imprisoned  seven  years,  and  should, 
during  that  period,  be  flogged  through  every  market  town  in 
Dorsetshire  every  year.  The  women  in  the  galleries  burst 
into  tears.  The  clerk  of  the  arraigns  stood  up  in  great  dis- 
order. "  My  lord,"  said  he,  "  the  prisoner  is  very  young. 
There  are  many  market  towns  in  our  cour.ty.  The  sentence 
amounts  to  whipping  once  a  fortnight  for  seven  years."  "  If  he 
is  a  young  man,"  said  Jeffreys,  "  he  is  an  old  rogue.  Ladies, 
you  do  not  know  the  villain  as  well  as  I  do.  The  punishment 
is  not  half  bad  enough  for  him.  All  the  inte;est  in  England 

*  As  to  the  Hewlings,  I  have  followed  Kiffin'j  Memoirs,  and  Mr 
Hewling  Luson's  narrative,  which  will  be  found  ii.  the  second  edition 
of  the  Hughes  Correspondence,  vol.  ii.  Appendix.  The  accounts  in 
Locke's  Western  Rebellion  and  in  the  Panegyric  on  Jeffreys  are  full 
of  errors.  Great  part  of  the  account  in  the  Bloody  Assizes  was  writ- 
ten by  Kiffin,  and  agrees  word  for  word  with,  his  Memoirs. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

shall  not  alter  it."  Tutchin,  in  his  despair  petitioned,  and 
r  'obably  with  sincerity,  that  he  might  be  hanged.  Fortunately 
;  jr  him  he  was,  just  at  this  conjuncture,  taken  ill  of  the  small- 
pox and  given  over.  As  it  seemed  highly  improbable  that  the 
sentence  would  ever  be  executed,  the  chief  justice  consented 
.0  remit  it,  in  return  for  a  bribe  which  reduced  the  prisonei 
io  poverty.  The  temper  of  Tutchin,  not  originally  very  mild, 
was  exasperated  to  madness  by  what  he  had  undergone.  He 
lived  to  be  known  as  one  of  the  most  acrimonious  and  perti- 
nacious enemies  of  the  House  of  Stuart  and  of  the  Tory  party.* 

The  number  of  prisoners  whom  Jeffreys  transported  was 
tight  hundred  and  forty-one.  These  men,  more  wretched  than 
their  associates  wko  suffered  death,  were  distributed  into  gangs, 
and  bestowed  on  persons  who  enjoyed  favor  at  court.  The 
conditions  of  the  gift  were,  that  the  convicts  should  be  carried 
beyond  sea  as  slaves,  that  they  should  not  be  emancipated  for 
ten  years,  and  that  the  place  of  their  banishment  should  be 
some  West  Indian  island.  This  last  article  was  studiously 
framed  for  the  purpose  of  aggravating  the  misery  of  the  exiles. 
In  New  England  or  New  Jersey  they  would  have  found  a 
population  kindly  disposed  to  them,  and  a  climate  not  unfavor- 
able to  their  health  and  vigor.  It  was  therefore  determined 
that  they  should  be  sent  to  colonies  where  a  Puritan  could  hope 
to-  inspire  little  sympathy,  and  where  a  laborer  born  in  the 
43mperate  zone  could  hope  to  enjoy  little  health.  Such  was 
.ie  state  of  the  slave  market  that  these  bondmen,  long  as  was 
i,ie  passage,  and  sickly  as  they  were  likely  to  prove,  were  still 
very  valuable.  It  was  estimated  by  Jeffreys  that,  on  an  average, 
each  of  them,  after  all  charges  were  paid,  would  be  worth  from 
ten  to  fifteen  pounds.  There  was  therefore  much  angry  com- 
petition for  grants.  Some  Tories  in  the  west  conceived  that 
they  had,  by  their  exertions  and  sufferings  during  the  insur- 
rection, earned  a  right  to  share  in  the  profits  which  had  been 
eagerly  snatched  up  by  the  sycophants  of  Whitehall.  The 
courtiers,  however,  were  victorious.! 

The  misery  of  the  exiles  fully  equalled  that  of  the  negroes 
who  are  now  carried  from  Congo  to  Brazil.  It  appears  from 
the  best  information  which  is  now  accessible  that  more  than 
one  fifth  of  those  who  were  shipped  were  flung  to  the  sharks 

*  Sco  Tutchin's  account  of  his  own  case  in  the  Bloody  Assizes, 
t  Sunderland  to  Jeffreys,   Sept.   14,  1685;  Jeffreys  to  the  King, 
Sept.  19,  1685,  in  the  State  Paper  Office. 


HISTORlf    OF    ENGLAND,  513 

oefoie  the  end  of  the  voyage.  The  human  cargoes  were 
stowed  close  in  the  holds  of  small  vessels.  So  little  space  was 
allowed  that  the  wretches,  many  of  whom  were  still  tormented 
by  unhealed  wounds,  could  not  air*  lie  down  at  once  without 
lying  on  one  another.  They  were  never  suffered  to  go  on 
deck.  The  hatchway  was  constantly  watched  by  sentinels 
armed  with  hangers  and  blunderbusses.  In  the  dungeon  below 
all  was  darkness,  stench,  lamentation,  disease,  and  death.  Of 
ninety-nine  convicts  who  were  carried  out  in  one  vessel,  twenty 
two  died  before  they  reached  Jamaica,  although  the  voyage 
was  performed  with  unusual  speed.  The  survivors  when  they 
arrived  at  their  house  of  bondage  were  mere  skeletons.  During 
some  weeks  coarse  biscuit  and  fetid  water  had  been  doled  out 
to  them  in  such  scanty  measure  that  any  one  of  them  could 
easily  have  consumed  the  ration  which  was  assigned  to  five. 
They  were,  therefore,  in  such  a  state  that  the  merchant  to 
whom  they  had  been  consigned  found  it  expedient  to  fatten 
them  before  selling  them.* 

Meanwhile  the  property  both  of  the  rebels  who  had  suffered 
death,  and  of  those  more  unfortunate  men  who  were  withering 
under  the  tropical  sun,  was  fought  for  and  torn  in  pieces  by  a 
crowd  of  greedy  informers.  By  law  a  subject  attainted  of 
treason  forfeits  all  his  substance  ;  and  this  law  was  enforced 
after  the  Bloody  Assizes  with  a  rigor  at  once  cruel  and  ludi- 
crous. The  broken-hearted  widows  and  destitute  orphans  of 
the  laboring  men  whose  corpses  hung  at  the  cross  roads  were 
called  upon  by  the  agents  of  the  Treasury  to  explain  what  had 
become  of  a  basket,  of  a  goose,  of  a  flitch  of  bacon,  of  a  keg 
of  cider,  of  a  sack  of  beans,  of  a  truss  of  hay.t  While  the 
humbler  retainers  of  the  government  were  pillaging  the  families 
of  the  slaughtered  peasants,  the  chief  justice  was  fast  accumu- 
lating a  fortune  out  of  the  plunder  of  a  higher  class  of  Whigs. 
He  traded  largely  in  pardons.  His  most  lucrative  transaction 
of  this  kind  was  with  a  gentleman  named  Edmund  Prideaux. 
It  is  certain  that  Prideaux  had  not  been  in  arms  against  the 

*  The  best  account  of  the  sufferings  of  those  rebels  who  were  sen- 
tenced to  transportation  is  to  be  found  in  a  very  curious  narrative 
written  by  John  Goad,  an  honest,  God-fearing  carpenter,  who  joined 
Moimiouth,  was  badly  wounded  at  Philip's  Norton,  was  tried  by  Jef- 
freys, and  was  sent  to  Jamaica.  The  original  manuscript  was  kindly 
lent  to  me  by  Mr.  Phippard,  to  whom  it  belongs. 

t  In  the  Treasury  records  of  the  autumn  of  1685  are  several  letters 
4irocting  search  to  be  made  for  trifles  of  this  sort. 
43* 


614  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

government ;  and  it  is  probable  that  his  only  crime  was  tM 
wealth  which  jje  had  inherited  from  his  father,  an  eminent 
lawyer  who  had  been  high  in  office  under  the  Protector.  No 
exertions  were  spared  to  ^nake  out  a  case  for  the  crown. 
Mercy  was  offered  to  some  prisoners  on  condition  that  they 
would  bear  evidence  against  Prideaux.  The  unfortunate  man 
lay  long  in  jail,  and  at  length,  overcome  by  fear  of  the  gallows, 
consented  to  pay  fifteen  thousand  pounds  for  his  liberation. 
This  great  sum  was  received  by  Jeffreys.  He  bought  with  it 
.in  estate,  to  which  the  people  gave  the  name  of  Aceldama, 
from  that  accursed  field  which  was  purchased  with  the  price 
of  innocent  blood.* 

He  was  ably  assisted  in  the  work  of  extortion  by  the  crew 
of  parasites  who  were  in  the  habit  of  drinking  and  laughing 
with  him.  The  office  of  these  men  was  to  drive  hard  bargains 
with  convicts  under  the  strong  terrors  of  death,  and  with  parents 
rembling  for  the  lives  of  children.  A  portion  of  the  spoil  was 
abandoned  by  Jeffreys  to  his  agents.  To  one  of  his  boon  com- 
panions, it  is  said,  he  tossed  a  pardon  for  a  rich  traitor  across 
the  table  during  a  revel.  It  was  not  safe  to  have  recourse  to 
any  intercession  except  that  of  his  creatures  ;  for  he  guarded 
his  profitable  monopoly  of  mercy  with  jealous  care.  It  was 
even  suspected  that  he  sent  some  persons  to  the  gibbet  solely 
Because  they  had  applied  for  the  royal  clemency  through  chan- 
nels independent  of  him.t 

,Some  courtiers  nevertheless  contrived  to  obtain  a  small 
share  of  this  traffic.  The  ladies  of  the  queen's  household  dis- 
tinguished themselves  preeminently  by  rapacity  and  hardheart- 
edness.  Part  of  the  disgrace  which  they  incurred  falls  on  their 
mistress ;  for  it  was  solely  on  account  of  the  relation  in  which 
they  stood  to  her  that  they  were  able  to  enrich  themselves  by 
so  odious  a  trade ;  and  there  can  be  no  question  that  she  might 
with  a  word  or  a  look  have  restrained  them.  But  in  truth  she 
encouraged  them  by  her  evil  example,  if  no*  by  her  express 
approbation.  She  seems  to  have  been  one  of  <hat  large  class 
of  persons  who  bear  adversity  better  than  prosperity.  While 
her  husband  was  a  subject  and  an  exile,  shut  out  from  public 
employment,  and  in  imminent  danger  of  being  deprived  of  his 

*  Commons'  Journals,  Oct.  9,  Nov.  10,  Dec.  26,  1690 ;  Oldmixon, 
706  ;  Panegyric  on  Jeffreys. 

t  Life  and  Death  of  Lord  Jeffreys;  Panegyric  on  Jeffreys  Kiffin  • 
Memoirs. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  515 

birthright,  the  suavity  and  humility  of  her  manneis  conciliated 
the  kindness  even  of  those  who  most  abhorred,  her  religion. 
But  when  her  good  forttfne  came  her  good  nature  disappeared. 
The  meek  and  affable  duchess  turned  out  an  ungracious  and 
haughty  queen.*  The  misfortunes  which  she  subsequently 
endured  have  made  her  an  object  of,  some  interest;  but  .that 
interest  would  be  not  a  little  heightened  if  it  could  be  shown 
that,  in  the  season  of  her  greatness,  she  saved,  or  even  tried  to 
save,  one  single  victim^  from  the  most  frightful  proscription  that 
England  has  ever  seen.  Unhappily  the  only  request  that  she 
is  known  to  have  preferred  touching  the  rebels  was  that  a 
hundred  of  those  who  were  sentenced  to  transportation  might 
be  given  to  her.t  The  profit  which  she  cleared  on  the  cargo, 
after  making  large  allowance  for  those  who  died  of  hunger  and 
fever  during  the  passage,  cannot  be  estimated  at  less  than  a 
thousand  guineas.  We  cannot  wonder  that  her  attendants 
should  have  imitated  her  unprincely  .greediness  and  her  un- 
womanly cruelty.  They  exacted  a  thousand  pounds  from 
Roger  Hoare,  a  merchant  of  Bridgewater,  who  had  contributed 
.  to  the  military  chest  of  the  rebel  army.  But  the  prey  on 
which  they  pounced  most  eagerly  was  one  which  it  might  have 
been  thought  that  even  the  most  ungentle  natures  would  have 
spared.  Already  some  of  the  girls  who  had  presented  the 
standard  to  Monmouth  at  Taunton  had  cruelly  expiated  their 
offence.  One  of  them  had  been  thrqwn  into  a  prison  where  an 
infectious  malady  was  raging.  She  had  sickened  and  died 
there.  Another  had  presented  herself  at  the  bar  before  Jef- 
freys to  beg  for  mercy.  "  Take  her,  jailer,"  vociferated  the 
judge,  with  one  of  those  frowns  which  had  often  struck  terror 
into  stouter  hearts  than  hers.  She  burst  into  tears,  drew  her 
hood  over  her  facejYollowed  the  jailer  out  of  court,  fell  ill  of 
fright,  and  in  a  few  hours  was  a  corpse.  Most  of  the  young 
ladies,  however,  who  had  walked  in  the  procession,  were  still 
alive.  Some  of  them  were  under  ten  years  of  age.  All  had 
acted  under  the  orders  of  their  schoolmistress,  without  knowing 
that  they  were  committing  a  crime.  The  queen's  maids  of 
honor  asked  the  royal  permission  to  wring  money  out  of  the 

*  Burnet,  i.  368 ;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Feb.  4,  168$,  July  13,  1686.     In 
one  of  the  satires  of  that  time  are  these  -lines :  — 

"  When  duchess,  she  was  gentle,  mild,  and  civil ; 
When  queen,  she  proved  a  raging,  furious  devil.' 
f  Sunderland  to  Jeffreys,  Sept.  14,  1685. 


516  HISTORY    OP    ENGLAND. 

parents  of  the  poor  children  ;  and  the  permission  was  granted. 
An  order  was  sent  down  to  Taunton  that  all  these  little  girl* 
should  be  seized  and  imprisoned.  Sir  Francis  Warre,  of  Hes- 
tercombe,  the  Tory  member  for  Bridgewater,  was  requested  to 
undertake  the  office  of  exacting  the  ransom.  He  was  charged 
to  declare  in  strong  language  that  the  maids  of  honor  would 
not  endure  delay,  that  they  were  determined  to  prosecute  to 
outlawry,  unless  a  reasonable  sum  were  forthcoming,  and  thai 
by  a  reasonable  sum  was  meant  seven  thousand  pounds.  Warre 
excused  himself  from  taking  any  part  in  a  transaction  so  scan- 
dalous. The  maids  of  honor  then  requested  William  Penn  to 
act  for  them  ;  and  Penn  accepted  the  commission.  Yet  it 
should  seem  that  a  little  of  the  pertinacious  scrupulosity  which 
he  had  often  shown  about  taking  off  his  hat  would  not  have 
been  altogether  out  of  place  on  this  occasion.  He  probably 
silenced  the  remonstrances  of  his  conscience  by  repeating  to 
himself  that  none  of  the  money  which  he  extorted  would  go 
into  his  own  pocket;  that  if  he  refused  to  be  the  agent  of  the 
ladies  they  would  find  agents  less  humane  ;  that  by  comply 
ing  he  should  increase  his  influence  at  the  court,  and  that  his 
influence  at  the  court  had  already  enabled  him,  and  might 
still  enable  him,  to  render  "great  services  to  his  oppressed 
brethren.  The  maids  of  honor  were  at  last  forced  to  content 
themselves  with  less  than  a  third  part  of  what  they  had  de- 
manded.* 

No  English  sovereign  has  ever  given  stronger  proofs  of  a 
cruel  nature  than  James  the  Second.  Yet  his  cruelty  was  not 
more  odious  than  his  mercy.  Or  perhaps  it  may  be  more 
correct  to  say  that  his  mercy  and  his  cruelty  were  such  that 
each  reflects  infamy  on  the  other.  Our  horror  at  the  fate  of 
the  simple  clowns,  the  young  lads,  the  delicate  women,  to 
whom  he  was  inexorably  severe,  is  increased  when  we  find  to 
whom  and  for  what  considerations  he  granted  his  pardon. 

The  rule  by  which  a  prince  ought,  after  a  rebellion,  to  be 
guided  in  selecting  rebels  for  punishment  is  perfectly  obvious. 
The  ringleaders,  the  men  of  rank,  fortune,  and  education, 
whose  power  and  whose  artifices  have  led  the  multitude  into 
error,  are  the  proper  objects  of  severity.  The  deluded  popu- 

*  Locke's  Western  Rebellion  ;  Toulmin's  History  of  Taunton, 
edited  by  Savage  ;  Letter  of  the  Duke  of  Somerset  to  Sir  F.  Warre  : 
Letter  of  Sunderland  to  Penn,  Feb.  13,  168$,  from  the  State  Paper 
OfFc*  in  the  Mackintosh  Collection. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  517 

lace,  when  once  the  slaughter  on  the  field  of  battle  is  o  •  er,  can 
scarcely  be  treated  too  leniently.  This  rule,  so  evidently 
agreeable  to  justice  and  humanity,  was  not  only  not  observed, 
it  was  inverted.  While  those  who  ought  to  have  been  spared 
were  slaughtered  by  hundreds,  the  few  who  might  with  pro- 
priety have  been  left  to  the  utmost  rigor  of  the  law  were  spared. 
This  eccentric  clemency  has  perplexed  some  writers,  and  has 
drawn  forth  ludicrous  eulogies  from  others.  It  was  neither  at 
all  mysterious  nor  at  all  praiseworthy.  It  may  be  distinctly 
traced  in  every  case  either  to  a  sordid  or  to  a  malignant  motive, 
either  to  thirst  for  money  or  to  thirst  for  blood. 

In  the  case  of  Grey  there  was  no  mitigating  circumstance. 
His  parts  and  knowledge,  the  rank  which  he  had  inherited  in 
the  state,  and  the  high  command  which  he  had  borne  in  the 
rebel  army,  would  have  pointed  him  out  to  a  just  government 
as  a  much/  fitter  object  of  punishment  than  Alice  Lisle,  than 
William  Hewling,  than  any  of  the  hundreds  of  ignorant  peas 
ants  whose  skulls  and  quarters  were  exposed  in  Somersetshire. 
But  Grey's  estate  was  large  and  was  strictly  entailed.  He  had 
only  a  life-  interest  in  his  property ;  and  he  could  forfeit  no 
more  interest  than  he  .had.  If  he  died,  his  lands  at  once 
devolved  on  the  next  heir.  If  he  were  pardoned,  he  would  be 
able  to  pay  a  large  ransom.  He  was  therefore  suffered  to 
redeem  himself  by  giving  a  bond  for  forty  thousand  pounds  to 
the  lord  treasurer,  and  smaller  sums  to  other  courtiers.* 

Sir  John  Cochrane  had  held  among  the  Scotch  rebels  the 
same  rank  which  had  been  held  by  Grey  in  the  west  of  Eng- 
land. That  Cochrane  should  be  forgiven  by  a  prince  vindic- 
tive beyond  all  example,  seemed  incredible.  But  Cochrane 
was  the  younger  son  of  a  rich  family ;  it  was  therefore  only 
by  sparing  him  that  money  could  be  made  out  of  him.  His 
father,  Lord  Dundonald,  offered  a  bribe  of  five  thousand 
pounds  to  the  priests  of  the  royal  household ;  and  a  pardon 
was  granted  .t 

Samuel  Storey,  a  noted  sower  of  sedition,  who  had  been 
commissary  in  the  rebel  army,  and  who  had  inflamed  the  igno- 
rant populace  of  Somersetshire  by  vehement  harangues,  in 
which  James  had  been  described  as  an  incendiary  and  a 
poisoner,  was  admitted  to  mercy.  For  Storey  was  able  to  give 

*  Burnet,  i.  646,  and  Speaker  Onslow's  note ;  Clarendon  to  Roch- 
fstcr,  May  8,  1686. 
t  Burnet,  i.  634. 

VOL    I  44 


:>18  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

important  assistance  to  Jeffreys  in  wringing  fifteen  thousand 
pounds  out  of  Prideaux.* 

None  of  the  traitors  had  less  right  to  expect  favor  than 
Wade,  Goodenough,  and  Ferguson.  These  three  chiefs  of  the 
rebellion  hud  fled  together  from  the  field  of  Sedgemoor,  and 
had  reached  the  coast  in  safety.  But  they  had  found  a  frigate 
cruising  near  the  spot  where  (hey  had  hoped  to  embark.  They 
had  then  separated.  Wade  and  Goodenough  were  soon  dis- 
covered and  brought  up  to  London.  Deeply  as  they  had  been 
implicated  in  the  Rye  House  Plot,  conspicuous  as  they  had 
been  among  the  chiefs  of  th6  western  insurrection,  they  were 
suffered  to  live,  because  they  had  it  in  their  power  to  give 
information  which  enabled  the  king  to  slaughter  and  plunder 
some  persons  whom  he  hated,  but  to  whom  he  had  never  yet 
been  able  to  bring  home  any  crime.t 

How  Ferguson  escaped  was,  and  still  is,  a  mystery.  Of  all 
the  enemies  of  the  government  he  was,  without  doubt,  the 
most  deeply  criminal.  He  was  the  original  author  of  the  plot 
for  assassinating  the  royal  brothers.  He  had  written  that 
declaration  which,  for  insolence,  malignity^  and  mendacity, 
stands  unrivalled  even  among  the  libels  of  those  stormy  times. 
He  had  instigated  Monmouth  first  to  invade  the  kingdom,  and 
then  to  usurp  the  crown.  It  was  reasonable  to  expect  that  a 
strict  search  would  be  made  for  the  arch  traitor,  as  he  was 
often  called ;  and  such  a  search  a  man  of  so  singular  an  aspect 
and  dialect  could  scarcely  have  eluded.  It  was  confidently 
reported  in  the  coffee-houses  of  London  that  Ferguson  was 
taken  ;  and  this  report  found  credit  with  men  who  had  excel- 
lent opportunities  of  knowing  the  truth.  The  next  thing  that 
was  heard  of  him  was,  that  he  was  safe  on  the  Continent.  It 
was  strongly  suspected  that  he  had  been  in  constant  communi- 
cation with  the  government  against  which  he  was  constantly 
plotting,  that  he  had,  while  urging  his  associates  to  every 
excess  of  rashness,  sent  to  Whitehall  just  so  much  information 
about  their  proceedings  as  might  suffice  to  save  his  own  neck, 
and  that  therefore  orders  had  been  given  to  let  him  escape. J 

*  Calamy's  Memoirs ;  Commons'  Journals,  Dec.  26,  1690 ;  Privy 
Council  Book,  Feb.  26,  168|. 

t  Lansdownc  MS.  1152;  Harl.  MS.  6845;  London  Gazette,  July 
20.  1685. 

J  Many  writers  have  asserted,  without  the  slightest  foundation, 
that  a  pardon  was  granted  to  Ferguson  by  James.  Some  have  been 
so  absurd  as  to  cite  this  imaginary  pardon,  which,  if  it  were  real, 


HISTORY    OF    LNGLAND.        •  519- 

And  now  Jeffreys  had  done  his  "work,  and  returned  to  clai:n 
his  reward.  He  arrived  at  Windsor  from  the  west,  leaving 
carnage,  mourning,  and  terror  behind  him.  The  hatred  wi.h 
which  he  was  regarded  by  .he  people  of  Somersetshire  has  1,0 
parallel  in  our  history.  It  ;vas  not  to  be  quenched  by  time  01 
by  political  changes,  was  long  transmitted  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  raged  fiercely  against  his  innocent  progeny. 
When  he  had  been  many  years  dead,  when  his  name  and  title 
were  extinct,  his  granddaughter,  the  Countess  of  Pomfret,  trav- 
elling along  the  western  road,  was  insulted  by  the  populace, 
and  found  that  she  could  not  safely  venture  herself  among  the 
descendants  of  those  who  had  witnessed  the  bloody  assizes.* 

But  at  the  court  Jeffreys  was  cordially  welcomed.  He  was 
a  judge  after  his  master's  own  heart.  James  had  watched  the 
circuit  with  interest  and  delight.  In  his  drawing-room  and  at 
his  table  he  had  frequently  talked  of  the  havoc  which  was 
making  among  his  disaffected  subjects  with  a  glee  at  which  the 
foreign  ministers  stood  aghast.  With  his  own  hand  he  had 
penned  accounts  of  what  he  facetiously  called  his  lord  chief 
justice's  campaign  in  the  west.  Some  hundreds  of  rebels,  his 
majesty  wrote  to  the  Hague,  had  been  condemned.  Some  of 
them  had  been  hanged  ;  more  should  be  so ;  and  the  rest 
should  be  sent  to  the  plantations.  It  was  to  no  purpose  that 
Ken  wrote  to  implore  mercy  for  the  misguided  people,  and 
described  with  pathetic  eloquence  the  frightful  state  of  his 
drocese.  He  complained  that  it  was  impossible  to  walk  along 

would  prove  only  that  Ferguson  was  a  court  spy,  in  proof  of  the 
magnanimity  and  benignity  of  the  prince  who  beheaded  Alice  Lisle 
and  burned  Elizabeth  Gaunt.  Ferguson  was  not  only  not  specially 
pardoned,  but  was  excluded  by  name  from  the  general  pardon  pub- 
lished in  the  following  spring.  (London  Gazette,  March  15,  168$.) 
If,  as  the  public  suspected,  and  as  seems  probable,  indulgence  was 
shown  to  him,  it  was  indulgence  of  which  James  was,  not  without 
reason,  ashamed,  and  which  wris,  as  far  as  possible,  kept  secret".  The 
reports  which'  were  current  in  London  at  the  time  are  mentioned  in 
the  Observator,  Aug.  1,  1685. 

Sir  John  Reresby,  who  ought  to  have  been  well  informed,  positively 
affirms  that  Ferguson  was  taken  three  days  after  the  battle  of  Sedge- 
moor.  But  Sir  John  was  certainly  wrong  as  to  the  date,  and  may 
therefore  have  been  wrong  as  to  the  whole  story.  From  the  London 
Gazette,  and  from  Goodenough's  Confession,  (Lansdowne  MS.  1152,) 
it  is  clear  that,  a  fortnight  after  the  battle,  Ferguson  had  not  been 
caught,  and  was  supposed  to  be  still  lurking  in  England. 

*  Granger's  Biographical  History,  «•  Jeifreys." 


520  •         HISTuRYv  OF    ENGLAND. 

the  highways  without  seeing  some  terrible  spectacle,  and  that 
the  whole  air  of  Somersetshire  was  tainted  with  death.  The 
king  read  and  remained,  according  to  the  saying  of  Churchill, 
hard  as  the  marble  chimney-pieces  of  Whitehall.  At  Windsor 
the  great  seal  of  England  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Jeffreys, 
and  in  the  next  London  Gazette  it  was  solemnly  notified  that 
this  honor  was  the  reward  of  the  many  eminent  and  faithful 
services  which  he  had  rendered  to  the  crown.* 

At  a  later  period,  when  all  men  of  all  parties  spoke  with 
horror  of  the  bloody  assizes,  the  wicked  judge  and  the  wicked 
king  attempted  to  vindicate  themselves  by  throwing  'the  blame 
on  each  other.  Jeffreys,*  in  the  Tower,  protested  that,  in  his 
utmost  cruelty,  he  had  not  gone  beyond  his  master's  express 
orders,  nay,  that  he  had  fallen  short  of  them.  James,  at  Saint 
Germain's,  would  willingly  have  had  it  believed  that  his  own 
inclinations  had  been  on  the  side  of  clemency,  and  that  unmer- 
ited obloquy  had  been  brought  on  him  by  the  violeiice  of  his 
minister.  But  neither  of  these  hard-hearted  men  must  be  ab- 
solved at  the  expense  of  the  other.  The  plea  set  up  for  James 
can  be  proved  under  his  own  hand  to  be  false  in  fact.  The 
plea  of  Jeffreys,  even  if  it  be  true  in  fact,  is  utterly  worthless. 

The  slaughter  in  the  west  was  over.  The  slaughter  in  Lon- 
don was  about  to  begin.  The  government  was  peculiarly  de- 
sirous to  find  victims  among  the  great  Whig  .merchants  of  the 
City.  They  had,  in  the  last  reign,  been  a  formidable  part  of 
the  strength  of  the  opposition.  They  were  wealthy  ;  and  their 
wealth  was  not,  like  that  of  many  noblemen  and  country  gen- 
tlemen, protected  by  entail  against  forfeiture.  In  the  case  of 
Grey,  and  of  men  situated  like  him,  it  was  impossible  to  grat- 
ify cruelty  and  rapacity  at  once ;  but  a  rich  trader  might  be 
both  hanged  and  plundered.  The  commercial  grandees,  how- 
ever',  though  in  general  hostile  to  Popery  and  to  arbitrary 
power,  had  yet  been  too  scrupulc  us  or  too  timid  to  incur  the 
guilt  of  high  treason.  One  of  the  most  considerable  among 
them  was  Henry  Cornish.  He  had  been  an  alderman  under 
the  old  charter  of  the  City,  and  had  filled  the  office  of  sheriff 
when  the  question  of  the  Exclusion  Bill  occupied  the  public 
mind.  In  politics  he  was  a  Whig;  his  religious  opinions 
leaned  towards  Presbyterianism  ;  but  his  temper  was  cautious 
and  moderate.  It  is  not  proved  by  trustworthy  evidence  that 

•  Burnet,  i.  648  ;  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  Sept.  10  and 
24,  1685 ;  Lord  Lonsdale's  Memoirs;  London  Gazette,  Oct.  1,  1685. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  521 

he  ever  approached  the  verge  of  treason.     He  had,  indeed 
when  sheriff,  been  very  unwilling  to  employ  as  his  deputy  a 
man  so  violent  and  unprincipled  as  Goodenough.     When  the 
Rye  House  Plot  was  discovered,  great  hopes  were  entertained 
at  Whitehall  that  Cornish  would  appear  to  have  been  concerned  ; 
but  these  hopes  were  disappointed.     One  of  the  conspirators 
indeed,  John  Rumsey,  was  ready  to  swear  any  thing ;  but  a 
single  witness  was  not  sufficient ;  and  no  second  witness  could 
be  found.     More  than  two  years  had  elapsed.     Cornish  thought 
^ himself  safe  ;  but  the  eye  of  the  tyrant  was  upon  him.     Good- 
enough,  terrified  by  the  near  prospect  of  death,  and  still  har- 
boring malice  on  account  of  the  unfavorable  opinion  which  had 
always  been  entertained  of  him  by  his  old  master,  consented 
to   supply   the   testimony   which   had  hitherto   been  wanting. 
Cornish  was  arrested  while  transacting  business  on  the  Ex- 
change, was  hurried  to  jail,  was  kept  there  some  days  in  soli- 
tary confinement,  and  was  brought  altogether  unprepared  to  the 
bar  of  the  Old  Bailey.     The  case  against  him   rested  wholly 
on  the  evidence  of  Rumsey  and  Goodenough.     Both  were,  by 
their  own  confession,  accomplices  in  the  plot  with  which  they 
charged  the  prisoner.     Both  were  impelled  by  the  strongest 
pressure  of  hope  and  fear  to  criminate  him.     Evidence  was 
produced  which  proved  that  Goodenough  was  also  under  the 
influence  of  personal  enmity.     Rumsey's  story  was  inconsis- 
tent with  the  story  which  he  had  told  when  he  appeared  as  a 
witness  against  Lord  Russell.     But  these  things  were  urged  iu 
vain.     On  the  bench  sate  three  judges  who  had  been  with  Jef- 
freys in  the  west ;  and  it  was  remarked  by  those  who  watched 
their  deportment  that  they  had  come  back  from  the  carnage  of 
Taunton  in  a  fierce  and  excited  state.     It  is  indeed  but  too  true 
that  the  taste  for  blood  is  a  taste  which  even  men  not  naturally 
cruel  may,  by  habit,  speedily  acquire.     The  bar  and  the  bench 
united  to  browbeat  the   unfortunate  Whig.     The  jury,  nanaed 
by  a  courtly  sheriff,  readily  found  a  verdict  of  guilty ;    and, 
in  spite  of  the  indignant  murmurs  of  the  public,  Cornish  suf- 
fered death  within  ten  days  after  he  had  been  arrested.     That 
no  circumstance  of  degradation   might  be  wanting,  the  gibbet 
was  set  up  where  King  Street  meets  Cheapside,  in  sight  of  the 
house  where  he  had  long  lived  in  general  respect,  of  the  Lx- 
change  where  his  credit  had  always  stood  high,  and  of  the 
Guildhall   where   he   had   distinguished   himself  as  a  popular 
leader.     He  died  with  courage  and  with  many  pious  expres- 
sions, but  showed,  by  look  and  gesture,  such  strong  resentmem 
44* 


522  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

at  the  burl/arity  and  injustice  with  which  he  had  been  treated, 
that  his  enemies  spread  a  calumnious  report  concerning  him. 
He  was  drunk,  they  said,  or  out  of  his  mind,  when  he  was 
turned  off.  William  Penn,  however,  who  stood  near  the  gal- 
lows, and  whose  prejudices  were  all  on  the  side  of  the  govern- 
ment, afterwards  said  that  he  could  see  in  Cornish's  deportment 
nothing  but  the  natural  indignation  of  an  innocent  man  slain 
under  the  forms  of  law.  The  head  of  the  murdered  magis-' 
trate  was  placed  over  the  Guildhall.* 

Black  as  this  case  was,  it  was  not  the  blackest  which  dis-^ 
graced  the  sessions  of  that  autumn  at  the  Old  Bailey.  Among 
the  persons  concerned  in  the  Rye  House  Plot  was  a  man  named 
James  Burton.  By  his  own  confession  he  had  been  present 
when  the  design  of  assassination  was  discussed  by  his  accom- 
plices. When  the  conspiracy  was  detected,  a  reward  was 
offered  for  his  apprehension.  He  was  saved  from  death  by  an 
ancient  matron  of  the  Anabaptist  persuasion,  named  Elizabeth 
Gaunt.  This  woman,  with  the  peculiar  manners  and  phrase- 
ology which  then  distinguished  her  sect,  had  a  large  charity. 
Her  life  was  passed  in  relieving  the  unhappy  of  all  religious 
denominations,  and  she  was  well  known  as  a  constant  visitor 
of  the  jails.  Her  political  and  theological  opinions,  as  well  as 
her  compassionate  disposition,  led  her  to  do  every  thing  in  her 
power  for  Burton.  She  procured  a  boat  which  took  him  to 
Gravesend,  where  he  got  on  board  of  a  ship  bound  for  Am- 
sterdam. At  the  moment  of  parting  she  put  into  his  hand  a 
sum  of  money  which,  for  her  means,  was  very  large.  Burton, 
after  living  some  time  in  exile,  returned  to  England  with  Mon- 
mouth,  fought  at  Sedgemoor,  fled  to  London,  and  took  refuge  in 
the  house  of  John  Fernley,  a  barber  in  Whirechapel.  Fernley 
was  very  poor.  He  was  besieged  by  creditors.  He  knew  that 
a  reward  of  a  hundred  pounds  had  been  offered  by  the  govern- 
ment for  the  apprehension  of  Burton.  But  the  honest  mar. 
was  incapable  of  betraying  one  who,  in  extreme  peril,  had 
come  under  the  shadow  of  his  rocf.  Unhappily  it  was  soon 
noised  abroad  that  the  anger  of  James  was  more  strongly  ex-  - 
cited  against  those  who  harbored  rebels  than  against  the  rebels 
themselves.  He  had  publicly  declared  that  of  all  forms  of 
treason  the  hiding  of  traitors  from  his  vengeance  was  the  most 
unpardonable.  Burton  knew  this.  He  delivered  himself  up 

*  Trial  of  Cornish  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials  ;  Sir  J. 
Hawles's  Remarks  on  Mr.  Cornish's  Trial ;  Burnet,  L  651;  Bloody 
\sgixes ;  Stat.  1  Gul.  &  Mar. 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  523 

x>  the  government;  and  he  gave  information  against  Fernley 
and  Elizabeth  Gaunt.  They  were  brought  to  trial.  The  vil- 
lain whose  life  they  had  preserved  had  the  heart  and  the  fore- 
head to  appear  as  the  principal  witness  against  them.  They 
were  convicted.  Fernley  was  sentenced  to  the  gallows,  Eliz- 
abeth Gaunt  to  the  stake.  Even  after  all  the  horrors  of  that 
year,  many  thought  it  impossible  that  these  judgments  should 
be  carried  into  execution.  But  the  king  was  without  pity. 
Fernley  was  hanged.  Elizabeth  Gaunt  was  burned  alive  at 
Tyburn  on  the  same  day  on  which  Cornish  suffered  death 'ir 
Cheapside.  She  left  a  paper  written,  indeed,  in  no  graceful 
style,  yet  such  as  was  read  by  many  thousands  with  compas- 
sion, and  horror.  "  My  fault,"  she  said,  "  was  one  which  a 
prince  might  well  have  forgiven.  I  did  but  relieve  a  poor 
family,  and  lo  !  I  must  die  for  it."  She  complained  of  the  in- 
solence of  the  judges,  pf  the  ferocity  of  the  jailer,  and  of  the 
tyranny  of  him,  the  great  one  of  all,  to  whose  pleasure  she 
and  so  many  other  victims  had  been  sacrificed.  In  as  far  as 
they  had  injured  herself,  she  forgave  them  ;  but,  in  that  they 
were  implacable  enemies  of  that  good  cause  which  would  yet 
revive  and  flourish,  she  left  them  to  the  judgment  of  the  King 
of  kings.  To  the  last  she  preserved  a  tranquil  courage,  which, 
reminded  the  spectators  of  the  most  heroic  deaths  of  which 
they  had  read  in  Fox.  William  Penn,  for  whom  exhibitions 
which  humane  men  generally  avoid  seem  to  have  had  a  strong 
attraction,  hastened  from  Cheapside,  where  he  had  seen  Cor- 
nish hanged,  to  Tyburn,  in  order  to  see  Elizabeth  Gaunt 
burned.  He  afterwards  related  that,  when  she  calmly  disposed 
the  straw  about  her  in  such  a  manner  as  to  shorten  her  suffer- 
ings, all  the  bystanders  burst  into  tears.  It  was  much  noticed 
that,  while  the  foulest  judicial  murder  which  had  disgraced 
even  those  times  was  perpetrating,  a  tempest  burst  forth,  such 
as  had  not  been  known  since  that  great  hurricane  which  had 
raged  round  the  death-bed  of  Oliver.  The  oppressed  Puritans 
reckoned  up,  not  without  a  gloomy  satisfaction,  the  houses 
which  had  been  blown  down,  and  the  ships  which  had  been 
;ast  away,  and  derived  some  consolation  from  thinking  that 
Heaven  was  bearing  awful  testimony  against  the  iniquity  which 
afflicted  the  earth.  Since  that  terrible  day  no  woman  has  suf- 
fered death  in  England  for  any  political  offence.* 

*  Trials  of  Fernley  and  Elizabeth  Gaunt  in  the  Collection  of  State 
Trials ;  Burnct,  i.  649  ;  Bloody  Assizes ;  Sir  J.  Bramston's  Memoirs ; 
Luttrell's  Diary,  Oct.  23,  1685 


524  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

It  was  not  thought  that  Goodenough  had  yet  earned  his  par 
don.  The  government  was  bent  on  destroying  a  victim  of  no 
high  rank,  a  surgeon  in  the  city,  named  Bateman.  He  had 
attended  Shaftesbury  professionally,  and  had  been  a  zealous 
exclusionist.  He  may  possibly  have  been  privy  to  the  Whig 
Plot ;  but  it  is  certain  that  he  had  not  been  one  of  the  leading 
conspirators ;  for,  in  the  great  mass  of  depositions  published 
by  the  government,  his  name  occurs  only  once,  and  then  not 
in  connection  with  any  crime  bordering  on  high  treason.  From 
his  indictment,  and  from  the  scanty  account  which  remains  of 
his  trial,  it  seems  clear  that  he  was  not  even  accused  of  par- 
ticipating in  the  design  of  murdering  the  royal  brothers.  The 
malignity  with  which  so  obscure  a  man,  guilty  of  so  slight  an 
offence,  was  hunted  down,  while  traitors  far  more  criminal  and 
far  more  eminent  were  allowed  to  ransom  themselves  by  giving 
evidence  against  him,  seemed  to  require  explanation ;  and  a 
disgraceful  explanation  was  found.  When  Gates,  after  his 
scourging,  was  carried  into  Newgate  insensible,  and,  as  all 
thought,  in  the  last  agony,  he  had  been  bled  and  his  wounds 
had  been  dressed  by  Bateman.  This  was  an  offence  not  to  be 
forgiven.  Bateman  was  arrested  and  indicted.  The  witnesses 
against  him  were  men  of  infamous  character,  men,  too,  who 
were  swearing  for  their  own  lives.  None  of  them  had  yet  got 
his  pardon ;  and  it  was  a  popular  saying,  that  they  fished  for 
prey,  like  tame  cormorants,  with  ropes  round  their  necks.  The 
prisoner,  stupefied  by  illness,  was  unable  to  articulate  or  to  un- 
derstand what  passed.  His  son  and  daughter  stood  by  him  at 
the  bar.  They  read  as  well  as  they  could  some  notes  which 
he  had  set  down,  and  examined  his  witnesses.  It  was  to  little 
purpose.  He  was  convicted,  hanged,  and  quartered.* 

Never,  not  even  under  the  tyranny  of  Laud,  had  the  con- 
dition of  the  Puritans  been  so  deplorable  as  at  that  time.  Nevei 
had  spies  been  so  actively  employed  in  detecting  congrega- 
tions. Never  had  magistrates,  grand  jurors,  rectors  and 
churchwardens  been  so  much  on  the  alert.  Many  dissenters 
were  cited  before  the  ecclesiastical  courts.  Others  found  it 
necessary  to  purchase  the  connivance  of  the  agents  of  the 
government  by  presents  of  hogsheads  of  wine,  and  of  gloves 
stuffed  with  guineas.  It  was  impossible  for  the  sectaries  to 

*  Bateman's  Trial  in  the  Collection  of  State  Trials  ;  Sir  John 
Hawles's  Remarks.  It  is  worth  -while  to  compare  Thomas  Lee's 
evidence  on  this  occasion  with  his  confession  previously  published 
by  authority.  • 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND.  525 

» 

pray  together  without  precautions  such  as  are  employed  by 
coiners  and  receivers  of  stolen  goods.  The  places  of  meeting 
were  frequently  changed.  Worship  was  performed  sometimes 
just  before  break  of  day  and  sometimes  at  dead  of  night. 
Hound  the  building  where  the  little  flock  was  gathered  together 
sentinels  were  posted  to  give  the  alarm  if  a  stranger  drew  near. 
The  minister  in  disguise  was  introduced  through  the  garden 
and  the  back  yard.  In  some  houses  there  were  trap  doors, 
through  which,  in  case  of  danger,  he  might  descend.  Where 
Nonconformists  lived  next  door  to  each  other,  the  walls  were 
often  broken  open,  and  secret  passages  were  made  from  dwell 
ing  1o  dwelling.  No  psalm  was  sung  ;  and  many  contrivances 
were  used  to  prevent  the  voice  of  the  preacher,  in  his  moments 
of  fervor,  from  being  heard  beyond  the  walls.  Yet,  with  all 
this  care,  it  was  often  found  impossible  to  elude  the  vigilance 
of  informers.  In  the  suburbs  of  London,  especially,  the  law 
was  enforced  with  the  utmost  rigor.  Several  opulent  gentle 
men  were  accused  of  holding  conventicles.  Their  houses 
were  strictly  searched,  and  distresses  were  levied  to  the  amount 
of  many  thousands  of  pounds. .  The  fiercer  and  bolder  sec- 
taries, thus  driven  from  the  shelter  Of  roofs,  met  in  the  open 
air,  and  determined  to  repel  force  by  force.  A  Middlesex  jus- 
tice, who  had  learned  that  a  nightly  prayer-meeting  was  held 
in  a  gravel  pit  about  two  miles  from  London,  took  with  him  a 
strong  body  of  constables,  broke  in  upon  the  assembly,  and 
sei/.ed  the  preacher.  But  the  congregation,  which  consisted 
of  about  two  hundred  men,  soon  rescued  their  pastor,  and  put 
the  magistrate  and  his  officers  to  flight.*  This,  however,  was 
no  ordinary  occurrence.  In  general  the  Puritan  spirit  seemed 
to  be  more  effectually  cowed  at  this  conjuncture  than  at  any 
moment  before  or  since.  The  Tory  pamphleteers  boasted  that 
not  one  fanatic  dared  to  move  tongue  or  pen  in  defence  of  his 
religious  opinions.  Dissenting  ministers,  however  blameless  in 
life,  however  eminent  for  learning  and  abilities,  could  not  ven- 
ture to  walk  the  streets  for  fear  of  outrages,  which  were  not 
only  not  repressed,  but  encouraged,  by  those  whose  duty  it 
was  to  preserve  the  peace.  Some  divines  of  great  fame  were 
in  prison.  Among  these  was  Richard  Baxter.  Others,  who 
had,  dunng  a  quarter  of  a  century,  borne  up  against  op'pres- 
sion,  now  lost  heart,  and  quitted  the  kingdom.  ^A.mong  these 
was  John  Howe.  Great  numbers  of  persons  who  had  been 

*  Citters,  Oft.  J§,  1685. 


626  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

• 

accustomed  to  frequent  conventicles  repaired  to  the  parish 
churches.  It  was  remarked  that  the  schismatics  Who  had  beer 
terrified  into  this  show  of  conformity  might  easily  be  distin- 
guished by  the  difficulty  which  they  had  in  finding  out  the  col- 
lect, and  by  the  awkward  manner  in  which  they  bowed  at  the 
name  of  Jesus.* 

Through  many  years  the  autumn  of  1685  was  remembered 
by  the  Nonconformists  as  a  time  of  misery  and  terror.  Yet 
in  that  autumn  might  be  discerned  the  first  faint  indications  of 
a  great  turn  of  fortune ;  and  before  eighteen  months  had 
elapsed,  the  intolerant  king  and  the  intolerant  church  were 
eagerly  bidding  against  each  other  for  the  support  of  the  party 
which  both  had  so  deeply  injured. 

*  Neale's  History  of  the  Puritans,  Calamy's  Account  of  tlje  ejected 
Ministers,  and  the  Nonconformist  Memorial,  contain  abundant  proofs 
of  the  severity  of  this  persecution.  Howe's  farewell  letter  to  his 
flock  will  be  found  in  the  interesting  life  of  that  great  man,  by  Mr. 
Rogers.  Howe  complains  that  he  could  not  venture  to  show  himself 
in  the  streets  of  London,  and  that  his  health  had  suffered  from  want 
of  air  and  exercise.  But  the  most  vivid  picture  of  the  distress  of  the 
Nonconformists  is  furnished  by  their  deadly  enemy,  Lestrange,  in  the 
Observators  of  September  and  October,  1685. 


BND  OF  THE   FIRST  VOLUME 


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